ABSTRACT
In public and academic migration discourse, transnational migrants are often viewed from two opposing perspectives. As immigrants in the place of residence, they are expected to participate, incorporate, and invest in situ. As emigrants, they are expected to stay economically, politically, and emotionally loyal to their places of origin. This paternalistically ascribed cross-border dilemma becomes evident when looking at remittances, money transfers migrants send to their families and friends in their places of origin. Based on ethnographic research in the context of the so-called guest-worker migration between Turkey and Austria/Germany from the 1960s until today, this chapter explores how sending remittances shapes the biographies of migrant actors. To this end, what I aim to show is not how remittances mirror and control transnational social relationships but, rather, how interwoven remittance and migration narratives function as practices of sense-making that provides an alternative to diverging cross-border expectations. By applying a narrative analysis, this chapter provides a methodological contribution to remittance research, which still mostly focuses on the motivations for sending money or the impacts these transfers have on the regions of origin.
