Rethinking Visiting Friends and Relatives Mobilities

Abstract

The increasing number of people leading more mobile lives, with spatially dispersed families, raises questions over how they maintain their family life and friendships, and how this is shaped and shapes different forms of migration, and different patterns of Visiting Friends and Relatives (VFR). This paper develops an explanatory framework for conceptualizing and analyzing VFR mobilities, seeking to draw together threads from migration, mobilities and tourism studies. In unpacking the notion of VFR, this paper understands VFR mobilities as being constituted of diverse practices, and discusses five of the most important of these: social relationships, the provision of care, affirmations of identities and roots, maintenance of territorial rights, and leisure tourism. While these five types of practices are considered sequentially in this paper, they are in practice often blurred and overlapping. The interweaving of these practices changes over time, as does the meaning and content of individual practices, reflecting changes in the duration of migration, life cycle stage, individual goals and values, and the broader sets of relationships with and social obligations to different kin and friends.

Connotations of ancestral home: An exploration of place attachment by multiple generations of Chinese diaspora

“…For instance, the personally attached group perceive ancestral home as a personally important place where they have abundant social and physical ties. They directly relate the place to themselves through strong emotions and actions (Cuba & Hummon, ; Janta, Cohen, & Williams, ; Low, ). In their cases, place attachment is interpreted from a strong sense of belonging to the home community, a clear personal identity as Chinese or mostly Chinese, and a strong desire to return (Kohlbacher et al, ; Sixsmith, ).…”

Transnational return? On the interrelation of family, remigration, and transnationality – An introduction

“…Women take an active role in visiting their families back in Poland, as shown by Paula Pustułka and Magdalena Ślusarczyk. The younger field of scholarly interest in "visiting friends and relatives" (vFR) (Janta, Cohen, & Williams, 2015) is closely linked to the topic of family. Often referred to as a "reality check" (Oeppen, 2013, p. 270) and a way to enhance "preparedness" (Cassarino, 2004, p. 271) for a planned remigration, vFR can also be an intentional strategy to avoid making a tangible decision about "here or there" and to integrate both places/countries into a transnational form of sojourning.…”

Cultivation, compensation and indulgence: Transnational short-term returns to Poland across three family generations

“…As already mentioned, the broad theoretical inspiration relates to visiting friends and relatives/family members (VFR tourism/VFR travel), a notion highlighted by Jackson (1990) as substantially underestimated and socially overlooked due to its elusive, imprecise, and hard-to-measure nature (Janta et al, 2015). The original failure to note family visits fostered a perspective of economic analyses, wherein some groups classified as VFR surprisingly outperformed non-VFR tourists in holiday spending (Backer, 2007;Lehto, Morrison, & O'Leary, 2001).…”

“…The topic of the inquiry necessitates an interdisciplinary approach, led by the recent critical reappraisal of notions formerly confined to tourism studies and subfields of geography, now crucial themes for migration studies (Janta, Cohen, & Williams, 2015;King & Lulle, 2015). In addition, this review covers family transnationalism (Bryceson & Vuorela, 2002;Goulbourne et al, 2010;Reynolds & Zontini, 2014;Levitt & Jaworsky, 2007), kinship, and care, as well as refers to the Polish context wherever relevant.…”