Third ISA Forum of Sociology (July 10-14, 2016)

JS-23

The Social Reproductive Worlds of Migrants

RC06 Family Research (host committee)
RC31 Sociology of Migration

Language: English

While research highlights the role inward migration plays in meeting the social reproductive needs of migrant-receiving societies, less attention is paid to the social reproductive aspects of migrants lives. In the context of the increasing volume in international migration and its feminisation, and the increasingly instrumentalist and economistic approach to migration-entry regimes, it is critical that migration and family policies begin to acknowledge that a production system cannot operate without a reproduction system (Truong, 1996).

This joint RC06 and RC31 session invites papers that contribute to developing a research agenda on the social reproductive worlds of migrants. Social reproduction incorporates family building through relationship formation and procreation, and the ongoing care required in the maintenance of people on a daily basis across the life course. Thus, we seek contributions that examine how during processes of migration, families are formed, procreate and care. Possible areas include: 

• spatial and temporal configurations of how migrants organise their social reproductive worlds, and how these relate to the patterning of opportunities and constraints rendered by public policies in both countries of origin and of destination; 
• the role of managed migration strategies in the development of patterns of “stratified social reproduction” (Kraler, 2010) among migrants; 
• how, to what extent and under which conditions transnational family dynamics and solidarities provide kin members with a safety net and greater opportunities to access and claim rights to social protection; 
• the gendered nature of migrants social reproductive worlds, including male as well as female migrants.

Posters: