Introduction: the invisible (migrant) man

Migration scholarship has often lagged behind developments in gender studies. The importance of gender has gained increasing recognition but this has predominantly meant a focus on women migrants; only recently has agendered lens been turned to the study of migrant men. Discourses surrounding migrationin law andgovernment, and in legal scholarship, remain characterised by neglect or dismissal of the gendered experiences of male migrants. Where they do appear, men are frequently cast as the oppressor of family members or as abusing legal channels of migration. Their vulnerabilities and affective ties and needs are rarely foregrounded. This negative representation may be instrumentalizedat a variety of levels, and for a variety of purposes, making it difficult for more nuanced critiques to gain purchase.This Special Issue seeks to extend the discussion of migration and gender by exploring the ways in which men’s gendered experiences of migration remain marginalised

Intimacy and Intergenerational Relations in Rural China

This article applies the concept of intimacy to examine relationships between adult children and their parents in rural China – an area which has been predominantly located in an obligatory framework. I reveal a qualitative difference in support between relationships built on intimate ties and those bound by duty and obligation. A unilateral emphasis on obligation-based relationships can deprive both the parent and adult child generations of agency and autonomy, which can be disempowering for both. The complex relations between intimacy and obligation are the product of local socio-economic circumstances and gender norms. Although traditional patrilineal and patrilocal culture excludes married daughters from the filial discourse surrounding their own parents, they are often considered to have the most intimate relationship with their parents. Paradoxically, the practices of intimacy between aged parents and their married daughters strengthen the natal ties that facilitate modifications to patrilocal and patrilineal customs

Making Transnational Intimacies: Intergenerational Relationships in Chinese-Western Families in Beijing

In this study, we explore intergenerational relationships in Chinese-Western transnational families. Our argument draws on 28 life story interviews with Chinese middle-class professionals and their Western partners in Beijing. In the context of their living arrangements in Beijing, many of these couples had close ties with their Chinese parents or in-laws, in some cases living together under the same roof. We draw on our participants' interview narratives to ask how their culturally situated, sometimes disparate, understandings of intimacy shaped their relationships with their parents or in-laws. In this context, our analysis focuses on the ways in which our participants negotiated understandings and practices in their families. We conceptualise our participants' transnational families as an individualised intimate space, within which meanings of family, filial piety, and marriage cannot be taken for granted and require an ongoing process of reflexive negotiation to become and remain mutually acceptable. With this study, we seek to add to academic debates about parent-child relationships and filial piety in Chinese society. While there is a sizeable literature on this subject matter, the ways in which the quickly growing number of transnational marriages in China may rework intergenerational relationships remain poorly understood

A História da Alimentação: balizas historiográficas

Os M. pretenderam traçar um quadro da História da Alimentação, não como um novo ramo epistemológico da disciplina, mas como um campo em desenvolvimento de práticas e atividades especializadas, incluindo pesquisa, formação, publicações, associações, encontros acadêmicos, etc. Um breve relato das condições em que tal campo se assentou faz-se preceder de um panorama dos estudos de alimentação e temas correia tos, em geral, segundo cinco abardagens Ia biológica, a econômica, a social, a cultural e a filosófica!, assim como da identificação das contribuições mais relevantes da Antropologia, Arqueologia, Sociologia e Geografia. A fim de comentar a multiforme e volumosa bibliografia histórica, foi ela organizada segundo critérios morfológicos. A seguir, alguns tópicos importantes mereceram tratamento à parte: a fome, o alimento e o domínio religioso, as descobertas européias e a difusão mundial de alimentos, gosto e gastronomia. O artigo se encerra com um rápido balanço crítico da historiografia brasileira sobre o tema

Relative distance: practices of relatedness among transnational Kenyan families

In this thesis I examine familial dynamics and relations between Kenyan migrants in London and their non-migrant kin remaining in Kenya. Two transnational family configurations predominate: younger migrants and their non-migrant parents and siblings, and older transnational couples (migrant wives and non-migrant husbands). If migration is understood as a morally-laden social process, then how migrant and non-migrant kin engage with the distance(s) between them become the grounds on which what it means to be related is expressed and negotiated. Distance emerges not only as geographic and physical, but also as socially generated by the actions and inactions of kin. I argue that the emplacement of kin in different contexts post-migration, particularly younger migrants within a nascent Pentecostal community in London, mediates transnational kin relations. The thesis challenges a predominant strand of research on transnational families, which contends that migration disrupts kin relations and contributes to the commodification of love and care. Moreover, the focus on transnational Kenyan families fills a gap in African diaspora research that has largely focused on migrants from West Africa and issues of identity, diaspora politics, and development, while also addressing themes in African anthropology, such as, intergenerational reciprocity, social reproduction, and change.This thesis is not currently available in ORA