Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-x24gv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-30T19:58:29.430Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The financialisation of transnational family care: a study of UK-based senders of remittances to Ghana and Nigeria

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2020

Nicola Yeates  and
Freda Owusu-Sekyere
Nicola Yeates*
Affiliation:
Social Policy and Criminology, Open University, Milton Keynes, UK
Freda Owusu-Sekyere
Affiliation:
Social Policy and Criminology, Open University, Milton Keynes, UK
*
CONTACT Nicola Yeates n.yeates@open.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Transnational families occupy centre-stage in literatures on transformations in the social organisation and relations of care and welfare because they express how social bonds are sustained despite geographical separation. This paper examines some key themes arising from a research study into remittance-sending practices of UK-based Ghanaians and Nigerians in the light of research literatures on transnational family care and development finance. The data comprises qualitative interviews with 20 UK-based Ghanaian and Nigerian people who regularly send remittances to their families ‘back home’. This paper discusses a social issue that arises from the transnationalisation of family structures and relations, when migrant family members are positioned within family networks as ‘absent providers’, and familial relations eventually become financialised. The findings show the complexities of transnational living, the hardships endured by remittance-senders and the particular strains of remittance-mediated family relationships. The financialisation of family relations affects the social subjectivity and positioning of remittance-senders within the family. Strain and privation are integral to participants’ experiences of transnational family life, while themes of deception, betrayal, and expatriation also feature. The suppression of emotion is a feature of the significant labour inputs participants make in sustaining relationships within transnational families. The paper considers UK social policy implications of the findings.

Keywords

TransnationalisationfinancialisationcareremittancesGhanaNigeriasocial protection
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy , Volume 35 , Issue 2 , June 2019 , pp. 137 - 156
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, R. (2006). International remittances and the household: Analysis and review of global evidence. Journal of African Economies, 15(2), 396–426.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Adams, R. H. Jr., & Page, J. (2005). Do international migration and remittances reduce poverty in developing countries? World Development, 33(10), 1645–1669.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Akuei, S. R. (2005). Remittances as unforeseen burdens: The livelihoods and social obligations of Sudanese refugees. Geneva: Global Commission on International Migration.Google Scholar
Amuedo-Dorantes, C., & Pozo, S. (2011). Remittances and income smoothing. The American Economic Review, 101(3), 582–587.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Asis, M., Huang, S., & Yeoh, B. (2004). When the light of the home is abroad: Unskilled female migration and the Filipino family. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 25(2), 198–215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baldassar, L., Baldock, C., & Wilding, R. (2006). Families caring across borders: Migration, ageing and transnational caregiving. London: Palgrave McMillan.Google Scholar
Baldassar, L., & Merla, L. (2014). Transnational families, migration and the circulation of care: Understanding mobility and absence in family life. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Baldock, C. (2000). Migrants and their parents: Caregiving from a distance. Journal of Family Issues, 21(2), 205–224.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Basch, L., Schiller, N. G., & Blanc, C. (1994). Nations unbound: Transnational projects, postcolonial predicaments and deterritorialized nation-states. Langhorne: Gordon & Breach.Google Scholar
Bryceson, D., & Vuorela, U. (2002). The transnational family: New European Frontiers and global networks. Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar
Carling, J. (2014). Scripting remittances: Making sense of money transfers in transnational relationships. International Migration Review, 48, S218–S262.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cebotari, V., Mazzucato, V., & Siegel, M. (2017). Child development and migrant transnationalism: The health of children who stay behind in Ghana and Nigeria. Journal of Development Studies, 53, 444–459. doi: 10.1080/00220388.2016.1187723CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cliggett, L. (2005). Remitting the gift: Zambian mobility and anthropological insights for migration studies. Population, Space and Place, 11, 35–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coe, C. (2011). What is the impact of transnational migration on family life? Women's comparisons of internal and international migration in a small town in Ghana. American Ethnologist, 38(1), 148–163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coe, C. (2013). The scattered family: Parenting, African migrants, and global inequality. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coe, C. (2016). Translations in Kinscripts: Child circulation among Ghanaians abroad. In Cole, J. & Groes, C. (Eds.), Affective circuits: African migrations to Europe and the pursuit of social regeneration (pp. 27–53). Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press.Google Scholar
Coe, C., Reynolds, R. R., Boehm, D. A., Hess, J. M., & Rae-Espinoza, H. (Eds.). (2011). Everyday ruptures: Children, youth, and migration in global perspective. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press.Google Scholar
Cole, J., & Groes, C. (2016). Affective circuits and social regeneration in African migration. In Cole, J. & Groes, C. (Eds.), Affective circuits: African migrations to Europe and the pursuit of social regeneration (pp. 1–26). Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dahl, H. M., & Spanger, M. (2010). Sex workers’ transnational and local motherhood: Presence and/or absence? In Widding Isaksen, L. (Ed.), Global care work: Gender and migration in Nordic societies (pp. 117–136). Lund: Nordic Academic Press.Google Scholar
Datta, K. (2009). Risky migrants? Low-paid migrant workers coping with financial exclusion in London. European Urban and Regional Studies, 16(4), 331–344.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Datta, K., McIlwaine, C., Wills, J., Evans, Y., Herbert, J., & May, J. (2007). The new development finance or exploiting migrant labour? International Development Planning Review, 29(1), 43–67. doi: 10.3828/idpr.29.1.3CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Luna Martinez, J. (2005). Workers' remittances to developing countries: A survey with central banks on selected public policy issues. Washington, DC: The World Bank.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Faist, T., Fauser, M., & Reisenauer, E. (2013). Transnational migration. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Friedman, M., & Schultermandl, S. (2011). Growing up transnational: Identity and kinship in a global Era. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hernandez, E., & Coutin, S. B. (2006). Remitting subjects: Migrants, money and states. Economy and Society, 35, 185–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hondagneu-Sotelo, P., & Avila, E. (1997). I'm here, but I'm there: The meanings of Latin transnational motherhood. Gender and Society, 11(5), 548–570.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Humphries, N., Brugha, R., & McGee, H. (2009). Sending money home: A mixed-methods study of remittances by migrant nurses in Ireland. Human Resources for Health, 7, 66. doi: 10.1186/1478-4491-7-66CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ketkar, S., & Ratha, D. (2001). Securitization of future flow receivables: A useful tool for developing countries. Finance and Development, 38(1), 46–49.Google Scholar
King, R., & Vullnetari, J. (2008). Does your granny eat grass? On mass migration, care drain and the fate of older people in rural Albania. Global Networks, 8(2), 139–171.Google Scholar
Kufakurinani, U., Pasura, D., & McGregor, J. (2014). Transnational parenting and the emergence of ‘diaspora orphans’ in Zimbabwe. African Diaspora, 7(1), 114–138.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lan, P. (2002). Subcontracting filial Piety. Elder care in ethnic Chinese immigrant families in California. Journal of Family Issues, 23(7), 812−835.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, H. (2006). Tonga only wants our money: The children of Tongan migrants. Globalisation and governance in the Pacific Islands. In S. Firth (Ed.), State, society and governance in Melanesia (pp. 121–136). Studies in State and Society in the Pacific, No 1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levitt, P. (2001). Transnational migration: Taking stock and future directions. Global Networks, 1(3), 195–216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, R. (2002). Financialization of daily life. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Mazzucato, V. (2008a). The double engagement: Transnationalism and integration. Ghanaian migrants’ lives between Ghana and the Netherlands. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 34(2), 199–216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mazzucato, V. (2008b). Transnational reciprocity: Ghanaian migrants and the care of their parents back home. In Alber, E., van der Geest, S., & Reynolds White, S. (Eds.), Generations in Africa: Connections and conflicts. Beiträge zur Afrikaforschung (pp. 91–112). Berlin: Lit Verlag.Google Scholar
Orozco, M., Bump, M., Fedewa, R., & Sienkiewicz, K. (2005). Diasporas, development and transnational integration: Ghanaians in the US, UK and Germany. Institute for the Study of International Migration and Inter-American Dialogue [Online]. Retrieved from http://w.thedialogue.org/PublicationFiles/Ghanaian%20transnationalism.pdfGoogle Scholar
Orozco, M., & Wilson, S. R. (2005). Making migrant remittances count In Terry, D. F. & Wilson, S. R. (Eds.), Beyond small change: Making migrant remittances count (pp. 375–394). Washington, DC: Inter-American Development Bank.Google Scholar
Owen, D. W. (2006). Demographic profiles and social cohesion of minority ethnic communities in England and Wales. Community, Work and Family, 9(3), 251–272.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Owusu-Sekyere, F. (2013). Critical linkages: Transnational living and prospects for private senders of money from Britain to Ghana and Nigeria (PhD thesis). The Open University, Milton Keynes.Google Scholar
Parreñas, R. (2005). Children of global migration: Transnational families and gendered woes. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Peil, M. (1995). Ghanaians abroad. African Affairs, 94(376), 345–367.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pellandini-Simányi, L., Hammer, F., & Vargha, Z. (2015). The financialization of everyday life or the domestication of finance? Cultural Studies, 29(5/6), 733–759.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poeze, M., & Mazzucato, V. (2016). Transnational mothers and the law: Ghanaian women's pathways to family reunion and consequences for family life. In Family life in an age of migration and mobility (pp. 187–211). London: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ratha, D. (2005). Workers’ remittances: An important and stable source of external development finance. In Maimbo, S. M. & Ratha, D. (Eds.), Remittances: Development impact and future prospects (pp. 19–51). Washington, DC: The World Bank.Google Scholar
Ratha, D. (2006). Leveraging remittances for international capital market access. Migration, Trade, and Development, Conference Proceedings. Retrieved from http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTACCESSFINANCE/Resources/Ratha-leveragingRemittances.pdfGoogle Scholar
Schmalzbauer, L. (2004). Searching for wages and mothering from afar: The case of Honduran transnational families. Journal of the Marriage and Family, 66, 1317–1331.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Singh, S., Robertson, S., & Cabraal, A. (2012). Transnational family money: Remittances, gifts and inheritance. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 33(5), 475–492.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skornia, A. K. (2014). Entangled inequalities in transnational care chains: Practices across borders of Peru and Italy. Bielefeld: Transcript.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Suro, R. (2002). A survey of remittance senders and receivers. In Terry, D. F. & Wilson, S. R. (Eds.), Beyond small change: Making migrant remittances count (pp. 21–40). Washington, DC: Inter-American Development Bank.Google Scholar
Taylor, E. J. (1999). The new economics of labour migration and the role of remittances in the migration process. International Migration, 37(1), 63–88.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tronto, J. (1993). Moral boundaries: A political argument for an ethic of care. New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Widding Isaksen, L. (2010). Global care work: Gender and migration in Nordic societies. Lund: Nordic Academic Press.Google Scholar
Yeates, N. (2009). Globalising care economies and migrant workers: Explorations in global care chains. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Yeoh, B., Leng, C. H., Dung, V. T. K., & Yi'en, C. (2013). Between two families: The social meaning of remittances for Vietnamese marriage migrants in Singapore. Global Networks, 13(4), 441–458.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zechner, M. (2004). Family commitments under negotiation: Dual carers in Finland and Italy. Social Policy & Administration, 38(6), 640–653.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zechner, M. (2008). Care of older people in transnational settings. Journal of Ageing Studies, 22, 32–44.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zelizer, V. (1997). The social meaning of money. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar