Abstract
This chapter focuses on the intersections of personal media and family diasporas in Southern Europe by analysing how particular diasporic subjects refer to the emotional and economic implications of their management of transnational family communication (TFC). The qualitative study is based on semi-structured interviews with 30 Ecuadorian and Moroccan adults living in Spain during the economic crisis that started in 2007 and whose harmful effects continue to unfold. The analysis is theoretically framed by globalization studies and media and migration studies, drawing on four dimensions: extensity, intensity, velocity, and impact of migrant interconnection. The metaphor of ‘juggling’ proved useful to capture conceptually the multiplicity of elements, feelings, and processes migrants deal with simultaneously when they engage in TFC in times of economic and social instability.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Notes
- 1.
Catalonia, located in the north-eastern region of the Iberian peninsula, is one of the 17 autonomous communities of Spain.
- 2.
The interviews were part of two research projects carried out within the Migration and Network Society Program, IN3-UOC: Immigrant women in the Catalan network society, supported by L’Institut Català de les Dones (Catalan Institute for Women), and E-administration and immigration in Catalonia, supported by Generalitat de Catalunya (the Catalan Government).
- 3.
In reference to US scholar Donna Haraway, author of “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century” (Haraway 2000).
- 4.
Fictional names are used to protect informants’ anonymity.
- 5.
Almería is a Spanish city in the southern region of the country.
- 6.
Valencia is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third largest city in Spain, after Madrid and Barcelona.
- 7.
In Spain, the word ‘locutorio’ refers to ‘special private venture[s] run by and for migrants which sells access to transnational communication for public use (basically, telephony and Internet services)’ (Sabaté 2010, p. 24). I chose to keep the Spanish word in order to acknowledge its singularity to the local context, differing from other spaces such as Latin American telecentros (governmental initiatives for Internet access) or French Internet cafés.
- 8.
Eids are annual celebrations in the Islamic calendar when members of the Moroccan diaspora tend to visit or send money and gifts to their families back in Morocco.
References
Alonso, A., & Oiarzabal, P. (Eds.). (2010). Diasporas in the new media age: Identity, politics, and community. Reno: University of Nevada Press.
Bailey, O. G., Georgiou, M., & Harindranath, R. (Eds.). (2007). Transnational lives and the media: Re-Imagining diasporas. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Baldassar, L. (2007). Transnational families and the provision of moral and emotional support: The relationship between truth and distance. Identities, 14(4), 385–409.
Baldassar, L., Baldock, C., & Wilding, R. (2007). Families caring across borders: Migration, ageing and transnational caregiving. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Baldassar, L., Nedelcu, M., Merla, L., & Wilding, R. (2016). ICT-based co-presence in transnational families and communities: Challenging the premise of face-to-face proximity in sustaining relationships. Global Networks, 16(2), 133–144.
Borkert, M., Cingolani, P., & Premazzi, V. (2009). The state of the art of research in the EU on the take up and use of ICT by immigrants and ethnic minorities (JRC Scientific and Technical Reports). Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union.
Boyd, M. (1989). Family and personal networks in international migration: Recent developments and new agendas. International Migration Review, 23(3), 638–670.
Carling, J. (2008). The human dynamics of migrant transnationalism. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 31(8), 1452–1477.
Cartier, C., Castells, M., & Qiu, J. L. (2005). The information have-less: Inequality, mobility, and translocal networks in Chinese cities. Studies in Comparative International Development, 40(2), 9–34.
Diminescu, D. (2008). The connected migrant: An epistemological manifesto. Social Science Information, 47(4), 565–579.
Elliott, B., Gerber, D., & Sinke, S. M. (Eds.). (2006). Letters across borders: The epistolary practices of international migrants. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Fortunati, L., Pertierra, R., & Vincent, J. (2012). Migration, diaspora and information technology in global societies. New York: Routledge.
Glick Schiller, N., Basch, L., & Blanc, C. (1995). From immigrant to transmigrant: Theorizing transnational migration. Anthropological Quarterly, 68(1), 48–63.
Gordano Peile, C. (2012). Mobile phones in migrant contexts: Commercial discourses and migrants’ appropriations of ICT in Spain. Observatorio (OBS*) Journal, Special issue on Introducing media, technology and the migrant family: Media uses, appropriations and articulations in a culturally diverse Europe, 129–151.
Gordano Peile, C. (2014). The migration industry of connectivity services: A critical discourse approach to the Spanish case in a European perspective. Crossings: Journal of Migration & Culture, 5(1), 57–71.
Haraway, D. (2000). A cyborg manifesto: Science, technology, and socialist-feminism in the late twentieth century. In D. Bell & B. M. Kennedy (Eds.), The cybercultures reader (pp. 291–324). New York: Routledge.
Held, D., McGrew, A., Goldblatt, D., & Perraton, J. (1999). Global transformations: Politics, economics and culture. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Hepp, A., Bozdag, C., & Suna, L. (2012). Mediatized migrants: Media cultures and communicative networking in the diaspora. In L. Fortunati, R. Pertierra, & J. Vincent (Eds.), Migrations, diaspora, and information technology in global societies (pp. 172–188). London: Routledge.
Hondagneu-Sotelo, P., & Avila, E. (1997). ‘I’m here, but I’m there’: The meanings of Latina transnational motherhood. Gender & Society, 11(5), 548–571.
Horst, H. (2006). The blessings and burdens of communication: Cell phones in Jamaican transnational social fields. Global Networks, 6(2), 143–159.
INE. (2013). Indicadores de migraciones. Series 2008–2012. Spanish National Statistics Institute. Retrieved from http://www.ine.es
Licoppe, C. (2004). ‘Connected’ presence: The emergence of a new repertoire for managing social relationships in a changing communication technoscape. Environment and Planning D, 22(1), 135–156.
Lüders, M. (2008). Conceptualizing personal media. New Media & Society, 10(5), 683–702.
Madianou, M., & Miller, D. (2012). Migration and new media: Transnational families and polymedia. New York: Routledge.
Mahler, S. J., & Pessar, P. (2001). Gendered geographies of power: Analyzing gender across transnational spaces. Identities, 7(4), 441–459.
Merla, L. (2010, February 18–20). Transnational practices of Salvadoran migrants in Australia: An analysis of the factors influencing the capability to care across borders. Paper presented at Migration: A world in motion. A multinational conference on migration and migration policy, University of Maastricht.
Nedelcu, M. (2009). Le Migrant Online: Nouveaux Modèles Migratoires à L’ère Du Numérique. Paris: L’Harmattan.
Qiu, J. L. (2009). Working-class network society: Communication technology and the information have-less in urban China. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Riak Akuei, S. (2007). Remittances as unforeseen burdens: The livelihoods and social obligations of Sudanese refugees. Geneva: Global Commission on International Migration.
Ros, A. (2010). Interconnected immigrants in the information society. In A. Alonso & P. Oiarzabal (Eds.), Diasporas in the new media age: Identity, politics, and community (pp. 19–38). Reno: University of Nevada Press.
Sabaté, M. (2010). “Voices from a locutorio”: Telecommunications and migrant networking. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Departament de Filologia Anglesa i Germanística. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
Sabaté i Dalmau, M. (2014). Migrant communication enterprises: Regimentation and resistance. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Watson-Manheim, M. B., & Bélanger, F. (2007). Communicating media repertoires: Dealing with the multiplicity of media choices. MIS Quarterly, 31(2), 267–293.
Wilding, R. (2006). ‘Virtual’ intimacies? Families communicating across transnational contexts. Global Networks, 6(2), 125–142.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Gordano Peile, C. (2018). Transnational Family Communication During an Economic Crisis: Personal Media Repertoires of Moroccans and Ecuadorians in Spain. In: Karim, K., Al-Rawi, A. (eds) Diaspora and Media in Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65448-5_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65448-5_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-65447-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-65448-5
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)