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Practising Motherhood at a Distance: Retention and Loss in Ecuadorian Transnational Families

2012; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 38; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/1369183x.2012.646421

1469-9451

Paolo Boccagni,

Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy

Abstract This article builds on an ethnographic study of a migration flow linking Ecuador and Italy. Through personal relationships built up during fieldwork, I was able to delve into the changing interactions between migrant mothers and the children they leave behind, looking also at constructions of ‘mothering at a distance’ in both their host and their home societies. For migrant women, practising transnational motherhood entails communicating frequently, sending remittances and showing a deep affective involvement. The attitudes and practices of migrant mothers suggest an ambivalent commitment: an attempt to exert control from afar over their children's daily lives, alongside a perception that any such attempt may prove inadequate; a struggle to work and save hard, alongside fears that the money sent home may be spent improperly; and a framing of migration as a necessary self-sacrifice, together with concerns about losing their grip on their children's upbringing. The article also looks at the role of some key variables—for example, the role of other family members in care arrangements; the influence of temporal and spatial distances on the evolution of intimate relationships; and the prospects for family reunion—in accounting for the impact of transnational caregiving practices. A final question arises. To what extent and in what realms—that is, in relation to the affective domain, the realm of communication or the area of material reproduction—can a transnational caregiving relationship be mutually interchangeable with a proximity-based one? Keywords: International MigrationEcuadorTransnational MotherhoodTransnational CaregivingEthnography Notes 1. No less significant (and even more troublesome), however, are transnational relationships between partners (see, on the Ecuadorian case, Banfi and Boccagni Citation2011; Pribilsky Citation2004). 2. An inherent ambivalence of the transnational family discourse lies, of course, in the shifting meanings and boundaries of the notion of family (Therborn Citation2004). Within my fieldwork on Ecuadorians, however, I have systematically found well-marked differences, in terms of affections or at least moral obligations, between family members proper—parents and children, partners (if any) and, to a lesser degree, brothers or sisters—and relatives. Only the former are generally regarded as legitimate recipients of remittances. The former—with an unwritten internal hierarchy (children first, then partners, then the rest)—are also far more eligible as potential members of future chain migration. 3. The quote in the heading is from my interview with R. (44 years old, in Italy for four years), a mother with two children left behind in Ecuador. 4. However, for a case study on transnational fatherhood in the Ecuador–US migration system, see the contribution by Pribilsky in this issue. 5. According to a 2005 national survey in Ecuador (FLACSO Citation2008), more than one-third of all adult emigrants—with little difference between the genders—still has one or more minor-age child in the country of origin. In other words, transnational parenthood is not necessarily a temporary or a short-term phenomenon. 6. The informal (though generally paid for) circulation of these affection-laden objects to family members back home, when a compaisano returns to Pasaje, is a valuable resource for exchanging information, as well as in terms of the emotions it arouses. I, myself, when travelling, took advantage of this opportunity (at no charge) in order to strengthen my ties with emigrants’ family members in Ecuador. 7. During my fieldwork in Ecuador, I found evidence of greater awareness about the life conditions of immigrants in Italy than I had expected. A quotation from my fieldwork notes (Pasaje, 22 November 2006) may be helpful here. It is taken from my visit to D., a former immigrant, whose children, still in Italy, I had often talked with. ‘Here we are at Mrs D.'s …. In the dining room, along with the usual paintings of their ancestors hanging on the walls, I cast my eye on a small photo—right above the TV set. It shows a girl, in Italy, outside a supermarket. Mrs D. went to Italy as an undocumented migrant and then came back. In her wake, a number of children, brothers and nephews left too. She says she would return now, but ‘only together with all my children’. Only later, while asking her for some more photos, do I realise that one of her children still in Italy, in his 20s, is S. (still irregular): one of those guys who seem to drink, play football and listen to (loud) music all the time. He has not called home ‘for five months’, but she looks resigned, rather than worried. ‘He always drinks a lot, doesn't he?’. I attempt a vague answer, but I feel impressed by her perceptive account of S.'s situation—even though she has been living far from him for years, and in spite of—I guess—their poor communication. No room for migration myths, here. ‘They're messing around, that's all’, she sighs at last. 8. Quoted as the supposed statement of a teacher during my interview with the mother of M., who has been caring for her grandchildren since M. left, seven years previously (Pasaje, 15 November 2006).