Migration, mobility and the dynamics of kinship: New barriers, new assemblages

Abstract

Although kinship has long since been established as a topic in migration research, migration scholars often lacked an analytical concept of kinship and relied on their own ethnocentric understandings and legal definitions. Reconciling insights from the anthropology of kinship and migration studies, we outline how a new theorization of kinship could be suitable and helpful for the study of migration and mobility. First, we need a conceptualization that accounts for kinship’s flexible and dynamic character in changing settings. Second, it is imperative to pay close attention to the intricate ways kinship interrelates with state politics. Lastly, an analytical notion of kinship should take into account that kinship relations can also have negative implications for the persons concerned. Articles in this Special Issue are attentive to these caveats and approach through the prism of kinship different issues of migration and mobility.

Imagining and living new worlds: The dynamics of kinship in contexts of mobility and migration

“…It is thus worth linking the two models of kinship depicted here with the two approaches to citizenship that Andrikopoulos and Duyvendak (2020) outline in their introduction to this special issue. If ethnic nationalism lays emphasis on origins, descent and a common history, civic nationalism stresses the values that ensure a common future.…”

Using mobile money data and call detail records to explore the risks of urban migration in Tanzania

“…According to figures in [ 29 ], there is little correlation between these findings and the poverty and human development indices for these regions—supporting the fact that our model didn’t select other push factors as predictors. It is likely that more subtle historical, tribal and cultural drivers explain these regional differences [ 73 ]. Such regional findings are useful for making local policy decisions that impact uncontrolled and unplanned migration from across the country.…”

States of Intimacy: Refugee Parents, Anxiety, and the Spectral State in Denmark

“…The interrelationship between kinship and the state has been widely studied in sociology and anthropology (Habermas 1989;Ariès [1960Ariès [ ] 1996Herzfeld 1997;Jackson 2007;Hage 1996;Andrikopoulos and Duyvendak 2020). Jürgen Habermas famously argued that the rise of the "rational-critical public sphere" in early modern Europe was initially seen as an extension and completion of the intimate sphere of family life (Habermas 1989, p. 50).…”