The Compadrazgo in Urban Mexico

On the Influence of Interpersonal Relations on Business Practices in Latin America: A Comparison with the Chinese Guanxi and the Arab Wasta

“…Colleagues, neighbors, acquaintances become compadres and acquire same rights and obligations as family members (Gill-Hopple & Brage-Hudson, 2012). Kinship or rituals are not required anymore (Kemper, 1982).…”

Constructing family: A typology of voluntary kin

“…Perhaps the best documented is the concept of godparenthood, or coparenthood. Compadrazgo, for example, common throughout Mexico and Latin America, is the linking of non-related families through godparent sponsorship of a child based on a special, non-familial relationship between the parents and the godparent (e.g., Kemper, 1982).…”

Crossing the border from boyhood to manhood: male youth experiences of crossing, loss, and structural violence as unaccompanied minors

“…Male children, however, are increasingly becoming part of this phenomenon and may be circulated for a variety of reasons, including when their circulation is within a familial network that will allow the child to remain in contact with the family even though they are geographically apart; the family has broken apart and no longer finds itself intra-dependent, thus the youth are on their own; there are sufficient males to maintain the economic future of the family such that the loss of one is not remarkable; or other extenuating circumstances whereby the family can afford the loss of the male child or the family no longer sees itself as part of the traditional familial system. The movement of children for economic and political reasons to extended and even fictive kin is intimately tied to the system of compadrazgo or godparenthood (Boehm, 2008;Coen & Higgins, 2000;Howell, 2002;Kemper, 1982;Leinaweaver, 2008;Walmsley, 2008). Children are often sent to live with their godparents during financially stressful times and are integrated into their families, but usually in a subservient manner.…”