Cross-border Communication and the Enregisterment of Collective Frameworks for Care

Communication as Care across Borders: Forging and Co‐Opting Relationships of Obligation in Transnational Salvadoran Families

“…Relatives in El Salvador sent photos of the village and family members, but they also frequently included video saludos like Olivia's greeting, a communicative practice that was strikingly never used by migrants. The unidirectionality of this particular genre does not mean that migrants did not take up language to enact care; rather, they utilized distinct communicative care practices, as demonstrated below and in my broader research (Arnold 2019(Arnold , 2020.…”

“…This perspective is part of a growing body of literature at the intersection of medical and linguistic anthropology (Arnold and Black 2020; Briggs and Faudree 2016; Carr 2011; Shohet 2007). The communicative care perspective bridges these subfields by bringing together conceptualizations of care and language, demonstrating that communication facilitates, enacts, and signifies care (Arnold 2020). It is precisely this multidimensional relationship between communication and care that allows language to become a vector both for co‐optation and refusal of global political‐economic inequities.…”

May/June 2021 Print Issue: Care

“…My (Lynnette's) interest in the everyday of care emerged from work with transnational Salvadoran families who continue to provide for each other despite long-term cross-border separation. Everyday communication or mundane forms of language use play a vital role in this care across space and time (see Arnold 2020 and for detailed discussion of this communicative care approach).…”

Caring by Silence: How (Un)documented Brazilian Migrants Enact Silence as a Care Practice for Aging Parents

“…For families separated across borders, information and communication technologies (ICTs) become a powerful force in allowing everyday communication and fostering transnational relationships. Through a communicative care approach, Arnold (2020) demonstrates that language operates at multiple levels to facilitate, enact, and signify care among Salvadoran families stretched across borders. 'Polymedia environments' are, in this context, essential tools in transforming how family relationships are experienced across borders and shaping and monitoring patterns of communication across distances (Madianou & Miller, 2012).…”

“…Existing scholarly work has carefully examined different types of care across distance, namely financial, practical, personal (hands-on), and emotional and moral types of support (Baldassar et al, 2007;Finch, 1989;Hromadžić & Palmberger, 2018). Within this scholarship, it has been widely recognized that communication plays a meaningful role in non-copresent care that is increasingly prevalent today (Arnold, 2020). Studies have chiefly focused on the substance of transnational communication and what is being said, and have drawn attention to the role of emotional support across borders and the significance of communication technologies (Baldassar, 2007(Baldassar, , 2016Baldassar & Wilding, 2019;Madianou & Miller, 2012).…”