Assemblages and affect: migrant mothers and the varieties of absent children

Drawing from stories told by migrant women in Hong Kong, this article builds on previous studies of ‘left‐behind children’ and calls for greater attention to the spectrum of sorts of absent children and to the formation of queer or less normative forms of migratory families. Taking a two‐pronged approach, I present an on‐the‐ground ethnographic and affective approach through several vignettes, and consider key elements of a more mid‐range and distanced ‘global assemblage’ approach to the institutions and expert knowledge that shape the experiences and practices of migrant mothers, migratory families, and the spectrum of absent children. This article posits that one's biological children, perhaps the most familial of kin, can become familiar or even unfamiliar strangers through contemporary processes, technologies and practices of migration and separation, and that the process of migration makes and unmakes conventional and unconventional sorts of families. While affective and assemblage approaches are independently valuable, combined they offer richer understandings of the complex interplay of factors – at various levels – that shape normative and queer families and different types of children's absences.