How does Informal Transnational Social Protection Bond Families Across Borders? The Case of Albanian Migrants and their Transnational Families
Abstract
Understanding the relationship between migration, social protection and doing family in transnational settings is important, both at academic and policy level. Migration disturbs safety nets and it created new realities such as transnational families. Migrants and their left behind families try to close the gap that arises between mobile social needs and static services and provisions. In doing so they (re)invent doing family in a transnational context and the protection they offer to one another primarily in the form of remittance, knowledge transfer, time and emotional care tend to provide solid grounds for bonding them across borders. Looking at the case of Albanian migrants and their transnational families, we reconfirm old patterns and sketch new trends in informal transnational protection practices which construct main fundamental ties holding transnational families together and are key in building and strengthen intergenerational solidarity among Albanian migrants and their left behind family and kin.
Riferimenti bibliografici
Albertini, M., Mantovani, D. & Gasperoni, G. (2019). Intergenerational relations among immigrants in Europe: the role of ethnic differences, migration and acculturation, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 45:10, 1693-1706.
Amelina, A., & Faist, T. (2012). De-naturalizing the national in research methodologies: key concepts of transnational studies in migration. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 35(10), 1707–1724. doi: 10.1080/01419870.2012.659273
Baldassar, L., Baldock, C., & Wilding, R. (2007). Families Caring across Borders. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Baldassar, L, & Merla, L. (Eds) (2014). Transnational Families, Migration and the Circulation of Care. London: Routledge.
Barglowski, K., Ł. Krzyżowski, and P. Wiątek. (2015). Caregiving in Polish-German Transnational Social Space: Circulating Narratives and Intersecting Heterogeneities. Population, Space and Place 21 (3): 257–269.
Bilecen, B., & Barglowski, K. (2015). On the Assemblages of Informal and Formal Transnational Social Protection. Population Space and Place, 21(3), 203-214. https://doi.org/10.1002/psp.1897
Boccagni, P. (2017). Addressing transnational needs through migration? An inquiry into the reach and consequences of migrants’ social protection across borders. Global Social Policy, 17(2), 168–187.
Bommes, M. (2000). National welfare state, biography and migration: Labour migrants, ethnic Germans and the re-ascription of welfare state membership. In M. Bommes & A. Geddes (Eds), Welfare and immigration: Challenging
Bryceson, D., & Vuorela, U. (2002). The transnational family: New European frontiers and global networks. Oxford: Berg Publishers.
Castles, S., & Miller, M. J. (2003). The age of migration: International population movements in the modern world. New York: Palgrave Macmillan
Crespi, I, Merla, L. & Meda, S. (2018). Making Multicultural Families in Europe Gender and Intergenerational Relations, London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Démurger, S., & Xu, H. (2015). Left-behind children and return migration in China. IZA Journal of Migration, 4(1).
Dhëmbo, E. (2012). Politikat e pajtimit të punës dhe jetës familjare; ecuria dhe impakti i tyre në Shqipëri në raport me ato të vendeve të tjera. University of Tirana, Albania
Dhembo, E., Duci, V. & Vathi, Z. (2019). Return Migration and Human Rights in Albania: the Case of Social Protection, Journal of Human Rights and Social Work, Volume 4, Issue 1, pp. 55–62.
Duci, V. & Dhembo, E. (2017). Albania’s EU Integration Process and the standards of social protection. FES Albania.
Dykstra, P. A., & Fokkema, T. (2011). Relationships Between Parents and Their Adult Children: A West European Typology of Late-Life Families. Ageing and Society 31 (4): 545–569.
EUROSTAT (2018). Asylum quarterly report, Available online at https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Asylum_quarterly_report (accessed 3 June 2020)
Faist, T. (2004). The volume and dynamics of international migration and transnational social spaces. Oxford University Press
Gemi, E. (2014) Transnational practices of Albanian families during the Greek crisis: unemployment, de-regularization and return, International Review of Sociology, 24:3, 406-421.
IDM (2016). Opinion poll: Trust in government 2015, Tirana – IDM, 2016
International Labour Organization (ILO) (2014). World Social Protection Report 2014/2015: Building Economic recovery, inclusive development and social justice. Geneva.
Karpinska, K. & Dykstra, P. A. (2019). Intergenerational ties across borders: a typology of the relationships between Polish migrants in the Netherlands and their ageing parents, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 45:10, 1728-1745.
Kordasiewicz, A., Radziwinowiczówna, A., Kloc-Nowak, W. (2017). Ethnomoralities of care in transnational families: care intentions as a missing link between norms and arrangements. Journal of Family Studies 24(1), p. 76-93.
Lee, E. S. (1966). A Theory of Migration. Demography, 3(1), 47.
Levitt, P., Lloyd, C., Mueller, A. & Viterna, J. (2016). “Transnational Social Protection: Setting the Agenda.” Oxford Development Studies 45 (1): 2–19.
Mai, N. & Schwandner-Sievers, S. (2003). Albanian migration and new transnationalisms. Journal of ethnic and migration studies, 29 (6), 939–948.
Michail, D., & Christou, A. (2016). Diasporic Youth Identities of Uncertainty and Hope: Second-Generation Albanian Experiences of Transnational Mobility in an Era of Economic Crisis in Greece. Journal of Youth Studies 19 (7): 957–972
Parreñas, R. S. (2005). Long Distance Intimacy: Class, Gender and Intergenerational Relations Between Mothers and Children in Filipino Transnational Families. Global Networks 5 (4):317–336.
Pellissery, S. (2013). Informal’ global policy? Global Social Policy, 13(1), 87–89.
Raithelhuber, E., Sharma, N., & Schröer, W. (2018). The intersection of social protection and mobilities: a move towards a ‘Practical Utopia’ research agenda, Mobilities, DOI: 10.1080/17450101.2018.1468592
Reisenauer, E. (2018). Distant Relationships in Transnational Families and Kinship Networks: The Case of Turkish Migrants in Germani. In Crespi, I, Merla, L. & Meda, S., (ed) Making Multicultural Families in Europe Gender and Intergenerational Relations, London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Roosen I, Siegel M. (2018). Migration and its influence on the knowledge and usage of birth control methods among Afghan women who stay behind. Public Health. 2018;158:183‐197. doi:10.1016/j.puhe.2018.03.014
Sabates-Wheeler R & Waite, M. (2003). Migration and Social Protection, Migration, Globalisation and Poverty. Working Paper Series of the Migration DRC. Sussex: University of Sussex.
Schmalzbauer, L. (2004). Searching for Wages and Mothering from Afar: The Case of Honduran Transnational Families. Journal of Marriage and Family 66 (5): 1317–1331.
Schüring, E. et. al. (2017). Social Protection as an Alternative to Migration? An assessment of the role of social protection in reducing push factors for migration in different country contexts, Berlin: GVG December 2017
Senyurekli, A. R., & Detzner, D.F. (2008). Intergenerational Relationships in a Transnational Context: The Case of Turkish Families. Family Relations 57 (4): 457–467.
Silverstein, M., & Bengtson, V.L. (1997). Intergenerational Solidarity and the Structure of Adult Child-Parent Relationships in American Families. American Journal of Sociology 103 (2): 429–460.
Stark, O. & Levhari, D. (1982). On Migration and Risk in LDCs. Economic Development and Cultural Change, 31(1), 191–196.
Vathi, Z. (2015). Migrating and Settling in a Mobile World: Albanian Migrants and Their Children in Europe. Dordrecht: Springer
Vathi, Z., Duci, V. & Dhembo, E. (2019). Social protection and return migration: trans-national and trans-temporal developmental gaps in the Albania-Greece migration corridor, Migration and Development, 8:2, 243-263.
Vullnetari, J. & King, R. (2011). Gendering remittances in Albania: a human and social development perspective. Gender & development, 19 (1), 39–51.
Wang, D. (2015). Activating Cross-border Brokerage: Interorganizational Knowledge Transfer through Skilled Return Migration. Administrative Science Quarterly, 60(1), 133–176.
Wolff, F. C. (2019). First-generation Immigrant Transfers and Mobility Intentions: Longitudinal Evidence from France. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 45 (10): 1813–1831. doi:10. 1080/1369183X.2018.1485208.
World Bank (2018) The State of Social Safety Nets 2018, World Bank Group
Wright, K. (2012). Constructing human wellbeing across spatial boundaries. Global Networks 12(4): 467–484.
Zhou, Y. R. (2012). Space, Time and Self: Rethinking Aging in the Context of Immigration and Transnationalism. Journal of Aging Studies 26 (3): 232–242.
Authors who publish in this journal agree with the following points:
- The author(s) guarantee(s) that the article is original and that it has not previously published nor sent to other journals for consideration.
- The author(s) declare(s) that the article does not violate the copyright of third parties and assume(s) the full personal and financial responsibility for any legal action which may be brought by third parties against the ICSR Mediterranean Knowledge
- The author(s) retain(s) the rights of the article. The ICSR Mediterranean Knowledge is allowed to publish it in digital edition with licence Creative Commons Attribution Licence 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND) or in any other form that the publisher considers opportune. The licence allows others to share the article, provided that the authorship and the initial publication in this journal are reported.
- The author(s) can establish arrangements with non-exclusive license to distribute the published version of the article (eg. deposit it in an institutional archive or publish it in a monograph), indicating that it was first published in the Journal of Mediterranean Knoweldge.
- The author(s) can distribute the work online (eg. on their website) only after that it is published by the Journal of Mediterranean Knoweldge (see The Effect of Open Access).
