ABSTRACT
Migration has produced tremendous changes in the structures and functioning of families, and the dynamic experiences of family life. Families are central to decisions about when, how, and which people migrate, playing an important role in migrants’ ability to navigate the receiving society, and are vital to continuing relationships across borders. In making the decision about who migrates, early theorists conceptualized households as homogeneous units wherein the interests of the collective “family” were prioritized. However, feminist migration scholars have critiqued such conceptions of households for ignoring conflicts and power differences between household members (Grasmuck and Pessar 1991; Hondagneu-Sotelo 1994). Additionally, migration creates a compression of time and place that brings into high relief the dynamics of globalization that affect all families, making migrant families an important site for both family scholars and those studying migration. In this chapter, we describe the importance of the family as a set of social relationships that shape (and are shaped by) the experiences and conditions of migration. The relationship between family and migration has long been recognized in social science,
but has only recently become an area of specialization in its own right. The expanding literature makes it clear that geographic mobility implicitly and explicitly involves families (Bailey and Boyle 2004). We identify seven clusters of family migration research, and highlight the prominent issues and debates that scholars are addressing within each area. We contend that like other social practices and relations, families are always in motion, continuously transforming and being transformed by transnational spaces. We define transnationalism as social interconnectedness that crosses national boundaries, with continuous exchanges across borders. We argue that transnationalism has been the most influential analytic lens for recent studies of migration and families, and so we have focused this chapter on transnational families to reflect that influence, although we do attend to other commonly used frameworks within the literature. This review of issues related to migrant families focuses on research produced over the last
few decades, which offers a look at families as part of transnational networks and communities. Current family migration scholars use transnationalism as their primary lens, and this literature on migrant families is largely focused on transnational ties and families within the United States. The issues we address in this chapter are occurring in family lives in different parts of the world
today. However, this chapter is not a comprehensive review of what is now a vast body of research. Instead, we present selected scholarly works to illustrate how family and migration are connected. Although our framework is transnational, the chapter’s emphasis is on immigrant families in US contexts. The United States has been, and continues to be, a central destination and place of settlement
for immigrants and their families. Immigrants are also more racially, ethnically, culturally, linguistically, and socio-economically diverse than in previous periods of US immigration (Lee and Bean 2010), making the United States an important site for examining how family patterns are transformed through migration. With this focus we do not intend to foster Western bias in understandings of families. While much of the central scholarship in migration and family has developed in the United States, scholars in other nations are also studying family/migration connections. For example, freedom of movement principles in the European Union make family migration a critical topic in European migration research (Bailey and Boyle 2004). The flourishing body of international scholarship is especially important for our understanding of how different political, economic, and demographic contexts shape migrant families.
