Circulation of Care and Kinship in Transnational Refugee Networks

Our paper argues for a shift in research that analyses the circulation of care within relatively stable transnational families towards an understanding of the circulation of care as part of transnational kinship processes (Baldassar & Merla 2014). We draw on our previous and on-going ethnographic research with refugees from various backgrounds in Norway and Finland to discuss local and transnational care practices as an integral means to maintaining, doing and imagining kinship in the lives of our research participants. We consider the care and kinship practices to also be about aspirations and the anticipation of the future. We bring together Carsten’s (2020) work on kinship to develop a three-dimensional understanding of kinship as (non)being, (un)doing and (un)becoming. We further propose a broad notion of care as local and transnational practices as well as emotions relating to caring, such as attending to, noticing and being attuned to the needs and wellbeing of members of kin (Mason 1996). In the paper, we will discuss the various ways in which our research participants mobilise kinship and care as an inherent part of their migratory mobilities and future aspirations. Our findings point to the need to understand kinship flexibly, as a dynamic force that is not only about being but also about making and unmaking, as well as becoming in the future.

References:

Baldassar, L. & Merla, L. (eds.) (2014) Transnational Families, Migration and the Circulation of Care: Understanding Mobility and Absence in Family Life. London: Routledge.

Carsten J. (2020). Imagining and living new worlds: The dynamics of kinship in contexts of mobility and migration. Ethnography 21(3), 319–334.

Mason, J. (1996). Gender, care and sensibility in family and kin relationships. In: Holland, J. & Atkins, L. (Eds.). Sex, Sensibility and the Gendered Body. London: Macmillan, 15-36.