Consuming the transnational family: Indonesian migrant domestic workers to Saudi Arabia

Abstract There is heated debate in contemporary Indonesia about the rights and regulation of transnational women migrants, specifically about the ‘costs to families’ of women working overseas, but little attention has been given to women migrants' own views of family or women's own motivations for migration. In this article, which is based on field work in a migrant‐sending community in West Java, I focus on migrant women's narratives of transnational migration and employment as domestic workers in Saudi Arabia. I contribute to the literature on gender and transnational migration by exploring migrants' consumption desires and practices as reflective not only of commoditized exchange but also of affect and sentiment. In addition, I show in detail how religion and class inflect low‐income women's narrations of morally appropriate mothering practices. In conclusion, I suggest that interpreting these debates from the ground up can contribute towards understanding the larger struggles animating the Indonesian state's contemporary relationships with women and Islam.     

Migration and the accentuated ambivalence of motherhood: the role of ICTs in Filipino transnational families

This article is concerned with the impact of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on Filipina transnational mothers' experience of motherhood, their practices of mothering and, ultimately, their identities as mothers. Drawing on ethnographic research with Filipina migrants in the UK as part of a wider study of Filipino transnational families, this article observes that, despite the digital divide and other structural inequalities, new communication technologies, such as the internet and mobile phones, allow for an empowered experience of distant mothering. Apart from a change in the practice and intensity of mothering at a distance, ICTs also have consequences for women's maternal identities and the ways in which they negotiate their ambivalence towards work and family life. In this sense, ICTs can also be seen as solutions (even though difficult ones) to the cultural contradictions of migration and motherhood and the ‘accentuated ambivalence’ they engender. This, in turn, has consequences for the whole experience of migration, sometimes even affecting decisions about settlement and return.     

Migrant Membership as an Instituted Process: Transnationalization,the State and The Extra‐Territorial Conduct of Mexican Politics1

How should we conceptualize membership, citizenship and political community in a world where migrants and their home states increasingly maintain and cultivate their formal and informal ties? This study analyzes the extra‐territorial conduct of Mexican. politics and the emergence of new migrant membership practices and relations between migrants and home states. Standard globalist, transnationalist or citizenship theories cannot properly contextualize and analyze such practices. I propose that we rethink the concept of membership in a political community not only as a Marshallian status granted by states, but also as an instituted process embedded within four other institutions and processes: home state domestic politics; the home state's relationship to the world system; a semi‐autonomous transnational civil society created in part by migration; and the context of reception of migrants in the United States. A main conclusion is that the state itself plays a key role in creating transnational political action by migrants and new migrant membership practices. The article draws on printed sources and interviews and ethnography done since 1990.     

Invisible Development? Remittances for Housing and Transnational Reproduction Strategies among Migrant Households in Colombia

In recent years, the Colombian government has embraced the migration‐development agenda by designing programmes to channel remittances to key sectors such as housing and finance,in an attempt to institutionalise migrant households’ transnational economic practices. However, little is known about migrant households’ multifaceted transnational practices, their broader impact on households’ and localities’ socioeconomic development and migrants’ engagement with these migration‐for‐development programmes. Drawing on qualitative data collected along the Colombia‐UK migration network, this paper contrasts the narrow interpretation of development that underpins the migration‐development agenda, as exemplified by the remittances‐for‐housing programmes implemented in Colombia, with the more nuanced social and economic contributions that remittance‐financed housing investments have for migrant households’ and communities’ socioeconomic development. Thus, it provides a more nuanced interpretation of development to account for the often invisible, socioeconomic spinoffs that occur in the process of migrant households’ attempts to produce and reproduce their livelihoods transnationally.     

Sent home: mapping the absent child into migration through polymedia

Migrants and their transnational families document their children and child‐rearing practices on social networking sites (SNS) to enhance their social mobility. In this article, I identify a new group of migrant children, namely those sent home to their parents’ countries of origin for an imagined ‘good childhood‘. I demonstrate that polymedia – SNS and other platforms – sustain these children and create new norms of publicness and visibility in transnational parenting. Exploring how families document child‐raising across international boundaries, I show how the trajectories of parenting relationships remain open ended. I counter the predominant focus on transnational parenting as a kind of abandonment attached to left‐behind children. Instead, I refocus the research on the opportunities polymedia give families to create and sustain intimacies, thus making the trajectories of migrant families and children increasingly dynamic. Polymedia create important shifts in global migration – a transformation that requires changes in the way scholars approach transnational families and long‐distance parenting.     

Migrant Transnationalism and Modes of Transformation1

Much of the literature on migrant transnationalism focuses on the ways that specific sociocultural institutions have been modified in the course of being stretched across the globe. Yet migrant transnational practices are involved in more deep‐seated patterns of change or structural transformation. Such modes of transformation concern: 1) an enhanced ‘bi‐focality’of outlooks underpinning migrant lives lived here‐and‐there; such dual orientations have considerable influence on transnational family life and may continue to affect identities among subsequent post‐migration generations; 2) heightened challenges to ‘identities‐borders‐orders’stemming from migrants' political affiliations in more than one nation‐state; these particularly arise around questions of dual citizenship and nationality; and 3) potentially profound impacts on economic development by way of the sheer scale and evolving means of remittance sending; money transfer services, hometown associations and micro‐finance institutions represent three kinds of remittance‐related organizations currently undergoing significant forms of adaptation with significant consequences for development. These modes of transformation, and the practices of migrant transnationalism surrounding them, both draw from and contribute to wider processes of globalization.     

Transnational grandparenting: an introduction

This first special issue dedicated to grandparenting patterns and their significance within transnational families sheds new light on transnational grandparenting as a phenomenon reflecting the convergence of three major transformations in today's societies – global ageing, diversification of migration and mobility flows, and lifestyle individualization. It contains five articles based on empirical studies conducted in several European countries (Switzerland, Luxembourg, Spain, Romania, and the Czech Republic) focusing on transnational families from both EU and non‐EU countries (Germany, France, Italy, Brazil, Morocco, Algeria, Switzerland, Britain, Portugal, Romania, and Vietnam). These articles portray transnational grandparenting through the prism of three nexuses (mobile/non‐mobile, migrant/non‐migrant, and kin/non‐kin), thus allowing one to understand grandparents' roles in the transnational circulation of care in the light of contemporary family transformations on the one hand, and of the increased transnationalization of everyday ‘doing family’ practices on the other.     

Transnational parenting and the well‐being of Angolan migrant parents in Europe

Studies on the transnational family highlight the emotional difficulties of migrant parents separated from their children through international migration. This article consists of a large‐scale quantitative investigation into the insights of transnational family literature by examining the well‐being of transnational parents compared with that of parents who live with their children in the destination country. Furthermore, through a survey of Angolan migrant parents in both the Netherlands and Portugal, we compare the contexts of two receiving country. Our study shows transnational parents are worse off than their non‐transnational counterparts in terms of four measures of well‐being – health, life satisfaction, happiness, and emotional well‐being. Although studies on migrant well‐being tend to focus exclusively on the characteristics of the receiving countries, our findings suggest that, to understand migrant parents' well‐being, a transnational perspective should also consider the existence of children in the migrant sending country. Finally, comparing the same population in two countries revealed that the receiving country effects the way in which transnational parenting is associated with migrant well‐being.     

Integrated Motherhood: Beyond Hegemonic Ideologies of Motherhood

Existing research assumes that hegemonic mothering ideologies influence U.S. mothers' work and family decisions. These ideologies assume that childrearing is a mother's duty, that mothering occurs within a self‐sufficient nuclear family, and that paid employment conflicts with motherhood. Even when mothers do not conform to these ideologies, scholars find that they continue to influence mothers, as exhibited by mothers' efforts to reframe, redefine, or actively reject the ideal. This study expands on research that challenges the dominant influence of these ideologies on all mothers. Through analyzing the accounts of 24 middle‐ and upper‐middle‐class African American mothers employed in professional careers, three different cultural expectations about motherhood emerged. Participants assumed that they should work outside of the home, be financially self‐reliant, and use kin and community members as child caregivers. Together, these cultural expectations form the basis of an alternative ideology of mothering that the author terms integrated mothering.     

Post‐return experiences and transnational belonging of return migrants: a Dutch—Moroccan case study

In this article we explore the links between return migration, belonging and transnationalism among migrants who returned from the Netherlands to northeast Morocco. While transnationalism is commonly discussed from the perspective of a receiving country, this study shows that transnationalism also plays a vital role in reconstructing post‐return belonging. Return migration is not simply a matter of ‘going home’, as feelings of belonging need to be renegotiated upon return. While returnees generally feel a strong need to maintain various transnational practices, the meanings they attach to these practices depend on motivations for return, gender and age. For former (male) labour migrants, transnational practices are essential for establishing post‐return belonging, whereas such practices are less important for their spouses. Those who returned as children generally feel uprooted, notwithstanding the transnational practices they maintain. The amount of agency migrants are able to exert in the return decision‐making process is a key factor in determining the extent to which returnees can create a post‐return transnational sense of home.     

The meanings of migration,remittances and gifts: views of Honduran women who stay

In this article we examine the non‐economic, emotional meanings that men's economic migration has for the wives and mothers who stay in two rural communities in Honduras. Combining the literature on economic sociology and on the social meanings of relations within transnational families, we identify three areas that allow us to capture what the men's migration means for the women who stay – communication between the non‐migrant women and migrant men, stress and anxiety in women's personal lives, and added household responsibilities. Through interviews with 18 non‐migrant mothers and wives and qualitative fieldwork in Honduras, we find that women's interpretations of men's migration are not simple, black‐and‐white assessments. Instead, these are multifaceted and shaped by the social milieu in which the women live. Whereas the remittances and gifts that the men send improve the lives of the women and their families, these transfers also convey assurances that the men have not forgotten them and they become expressions of love.     

“Whom should We Help First?” Transnational Helping Practices in Ecuadorian Migration

Collective remittances, in the framework of migrant transnationalism, have been recently dealt with in some empirical research, especially on the Mexican‐US migration system. Far less studied is their significance in different migration flows, including their real contribution – as desirable as this may be – to local development. The article is concerned with a bottom up analysis of a migration flow where collective remittances – as the only way for emigrants to keep helping their local communities, well beyond their own families – are still in their infancy. It explores, through a translocal ethnography of Ecuadorian migration to Italy, the underlying attitudes, personal meanings and expectations – as well as the structural opportunities and constraints – accounting for helping practices at a distance. Charitable transfers to communities of origin are reconstructed as to their motivations, their main aims and beneficiaries, their embeddedness in mutual networks among immigrant co‐nationals. How is it that some of them decide to help “people in need” in their own communities overseas, or in their home towns, or in both? Is this an expression of communal belonging, or a matter of social status maintenance, or something else? Further reflections on the dilemmas inherent in transnational helping practices are then developed. Concluding remarks emphasize the relatively poor scope for such initiatives, in a recent and first‐generation flow over a long distance. While co‐ethnic solidarity overseas is a precondition for transnational helping practices, the latter are also affected by the developments of public policies in the countries of origin and of destination. Overall, an effective integration overseas is necessary for collective remittances to have some currency and impact.     

Responsibility,Mobility, and Power: Translocal Carework Negotiations of Nicaraguan Families

Recently, carework has emerged as a key area for exploring the gendered connections between migrants and their families “home,” providing insight into family‐level consequences of migration. However, the way carework shapes migration itself has not received due attention. Based on field research among Nicaraguan migrant families, this article explores the links between translocal carework and family migration decision‐making by connecting the concepts of transnational caregiving and power‐geometry of mobility to interpret fathers’ and female relatives’ carework involvement. In conclusion, the article highlights how translocal carework shapes family members’ access to mobility through ongoing negotiations of a wide range of responsibilities, indicating a possible direction for future explorations of migration.     

Here or There? Shifting Meanings and Practices in Mother–Child Relationships across Time and Space

In this paper, I analyse the changes that mothers and children experience in their relationship due to the physical separations and reunions entailed by the international migration process. I argue that the different geographical configurations that migrant families take over time are the outcome of a negotiation of care responsibility and desired geographies of family life, and are accompanied by changing meanings and practices in intimate relationships: the location of care relationships is influenced by the relatives' capacity both to take part in family negotiations as well as to overcome the constraints imposed by policies. Time is relevant because it leads to shifting meanings and practices of transnational family life, as well as to the changing role of children in the family.     

Transnational childrearing and the preservation of transnational identity in Brazzaville,Congo

Drawing on ethnographic research conducted at two ends of an intra‐Africa migration flow (Mali and the Republic of Congo), in this article I examine the role of childrearing practices in the maintenance of transnationalism. I consider different approaches to transnational childrearing by migrant parents and their reasons for adopting them, and delineate three common modes. The most widespread and socially validated approach is to send children home from Congo to their parents’ places of origin, where child fostering is widespread, to be raised by relatives for long periods; this approach increases the durability of transnational ties. I use childrearing approaches as an analytical lens to demonstrate the complementarity of multiple forms of domestic organization, mobility and settlement in the inter‐generational production and transmission of durable transnational identities. By arguing for greater focus on phenomena such as transnational childrearing, I seek to promote a broader conceptualization of transnationalism.     

Working‐class mothers’ school involvement: a class‐specific maternal ideal?

Recent ideological shifts, along with budgeting constraints, have made parental involvement in the schooling process necessary. Such expectations have increased the toll on working‐class mothers, who now have to assume responsibility in three time‐consuming areas: child care at home, school involvement and labour market participation. In analysing how mothers deal with this threefold expectation, research has focused on class‐specific maternal ideals and practices, but rarely directed systematic attention to how these concurrent expectations shape the maternal ideals they embrace. Moreover, few studies have examined how mothers’ maternal ideals shape their employment interruptions. The current paper considers how working‐class mothers rationalize the maternal ideals they embrace with regard to school involvement and examines how they negotiate them vis‐à‐vis other possible maternal ideals. Interviews of 48 Israeli low‐income mothers reveal that educational success is consensually perceived as critical for maximizing life chances and that this understanding evolved from the gradual realization that school involvement through extensive mothering – where women rely on others to meet their children's schooling needs – must be replaced by school involvement through intensive mothering – namely, personal presence‐based nurturing. We draw some implications relevant to the debate over class‐based maternal ideals.     

Migrant Assimilation in Europe: A Transnational Family Affair1

The paper advances our empirical and theoretical understanding of migrant assimilation. It does so by focusing on a very particular group of individuals who appear more likely than other migrant types to “go native.” We call these individuals “mixed nationality relationship migrants” (i.e., migrants who have committed to a life outside their home country because of the presence of a foreign partner). The paper argues that the transnational family milieus that emerge from this form of international migration are critical to the assimilation process. Empirical material from 11 in‐depth interviews with female migrants in Britain (Sheffield) and France (Paris) supports our argument. We also suggest that such “extreme” assimilation is more likely within a regional migratory system – like the EU – where the “identity frontiers” crossed in the formation of a transnational family are relatively shallow.     

Diminished tradition of return? Transnational migration in Bolivia's Valle Alto

One‐fifth of the Bolivian population lives abroad, and transnational behaviour strongly links their villages with destination communities. In this article we address whether the increasing difficulty of return migration (owing to legal and geographic barriers) results in diminished social and economic remittances to the country of origin. Results from a questionnaire survey of 417 households in the Valle Alto area of Cochabamba Department in 2007 reveal that monetary remittances account for one‐half of the income of active migrant families (and one‐quarter of income overall), and that transnational cultural ties remain strong. However, after ten years of cumulated time abroad the intention to return to Bolivia drops markedly along with economic and some social remittances. Closer analysis reveals that time abroad reduces these ties through the mediating forces of family members abroad, legal status, and home ownership abroad.     

Transnational migrant entrepreneurship,gender and family business

Despite increased academic attention paid to migration flows in Europe, the gendered nature of transnational migrant entrepreneurial journeys within the context of a family business remains under‐researched. We address this gap by investigating how transnational spaces allow women to challenge dominant ideas about their roles, and to claim legitimacy by opening branches of their family business abroad. With extensive longitudinal evidence collected over a seven‐year period, we showcase four biographical narratives of women operating transnational family businesses in the UK that had originated in Eastern Europe. Adopting this novel longitudinal approach, we provide insights into how these transnational migrant women entrepreneurs exercise individual agency to overcome structural constraints by developing strategies that prioritize their own business aspirations without fully sacrificing their family ties.     

Migrant family visits and the life course: interrelationships between age,capacity and desire

Migrant visits to the country of origin play a crucial role in transnational family cohesion and migrant well‐being; the research on them so far has focused primarily on the relationship between migrant integration and transnational engagement. In this article, I extend the discussion by adding a life course perspective to Carling and Hoelscher's (2013) framework for studying transnational activities, which incorporates capacity and desire. I explore whether age has an independent effect on migrants' family visits and how it relates to socio‐economic resources, migration status and transnational ties. Using data from a survey of Peruvian migrants around the globe (n=7,741), I show that migrants' stage in the life course has a partial effect on their propensity to travel through the interrelationship between age, capacity and desire. The findings show that the capacity and desire of migrants to visit their country of origin are particularly strong after reaching retirement age, suggesting a favourable combination of resources at later stages in life. However, whether this expresses a positive approach to ageing, or is a strategy to balance transnational family obligations and to postpone return decisions, remains open for future research.