‘You must win their affection . . .’: Migrants’ social and cultural practices between Peru and Italy

In this article, I explore local and transnational social networks as they are constituted and mobilized for a variety of livelihood goals. More specifically, I focus on networks that link family members in Peru – who are often migrants themselves – with their relatives abroad, and the kinds of networks that are developed and sustained at both ends of the migration continuum.1 In doing so, I shall examine in particular the notion of debes ganarte su carin˜o – the need to win the affection of others – and ideas and practices of ‘connectivity’, ‘being alert’ and ‘support’ that are central to these family networks.