ABSTRACT

This book explores the phenomenon of familyhood across borders, examining the experience of translocal familyhood and the manner in which lifelines in and between countries are formed when individual family members spend long periods away from home. Drawing on long-term ethnographic research, it considers the emotions, social relations, materialities and discourses that occur within family lives between Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Romania, Russia and Sweden. With attention to the ways in which gender, generation, class and geography create and reinforce inequalities, strengths and vulnerabilities within and between families, it combines ethnographic, descriptive work with shorter photography-based chapters in order to allow textual and visual methods to complement one another. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology, geography and anthropology with interests in migration, transnationalism and the sociology of the family.

chapter 1|21 pages

Introduction

Translocal Familyhood and Lifelines across Borders

part Section I|47 pages

Everyday Emotions

chapter 2|20 pages

Overcoming the Burden of Distance

Emotions in the Family Lives of Estonian Men Working in Finland

chapter 3|18 pages

Place Attachment and Translocal Ties

Adult Descendants of Polish Migrants in Sweden

chapter Commentary on Chapters 2 and 3|7 pages

Translocal Lifelines through the Lens of Emotion

Dealing with Distance and Connection

part Section II|46 pages

Gender and Inequality

chapter 5|19 pages

From Estonia to Finland

Women's Stories of Inequality, Survival and Relatedness

chapter Commentary on Chapters 4 and 5|7 pages

Feeling Translocalism

Stretched and Connective Emotions through Time and Space

part Section III|55 pages

Materialities

chapter 6|23 pages

Representing Translocal Taste Buds

An Exploration of Photography as a Method

chapter 7|22 pages

Claiming Translocal Place among Romanian Roma Migrants in Helsinki

Infrastructures, Urban Encounters and Displacement

chapter Commentary on Chapters 6 and 7|8 pages

The World Constituted through Photos

part Section IV|47 pages

Family Values and Integration