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

Reframing ‘integration’: Acknowledging and addressing five core critiques

Empirical and theoretical insights from the rich body of research on ‘integration’ in migration studies have led to increasing recognition of its complexity. Among European scholars, however, there remains no consensus on how integration should be defined nor what the processes entail. Integration has, moreover, been the subject of powerful academic critiques, some decrying any further use of the concept. In this paper we argue that it is both necessary and possible to address each of the five core critiques on which recent criticism has focused: normativity; negative objectification of migrants as ‘other’; outdated imaginary of society; methodological nationalism; and a narrow focus on migrants in the factors shaping integration processes. We provide a definition of integration, and a revised heuristic model of integration processes and the ‘effectors’ that have been shown to shape them, as a contribution to a constructive debate on the ways in which these challenges for empirical research can be overcome

Conceptualising integration: A framework for empirical research, taking marriage migration as a case study

Enquiry into the factors which impact on ‘integration’ requires clarity on the nature of the integration processes in which individuals are engaged, the intersection of those processes and the factors that may affect their operation over time. Elaborating on debates among European scholars which conceptualise integration as a series of multi-directional, inter-active processes in related but separate domains, we use the term ‘effectors’ to explore five sets of factors which have been shown to facilitate or impede those processes, setting out a framework capable of empirical and comparative application. We demonstrate the utility of this model in a case study funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (2013–2015) exploring the impact of transnational marriages in the UK, illustrating the conceptual and empirical value of the model when investigating the complexity of the factors involved in shaping the outcomes of integration processes. The model is illustrated in diagrammatic form. The case study in turn informs the model, highlighting the relevance of family and life-course events within an understanding of the full range of factors impacting on the integration processes in which individuals are engaged

Marriage migration and integration: interrogating assumptions in academic and policy debates

In both policy and academic debates in Britain, as elsewhere in Europe, concern is increasingly expressed over the implications of spousal immigration for ‘integration’. Continued practices of ‘homeland’ transnational marriage within some ethnic minority communities in particular are presented as problematic, and new immigration restrictions likely to affect such groups in particular are justified on the grounds of promoting integration. The evidence base to underpin this concern is, however, surprisingly limited and analysis is based on differing and often partial conceptualizations of integration. Through an examination of the evidence in recent studies we interrogate the impact which spousal immigration can have within differing domains of integration. Exposing the complex processes at play we demonstrate the need for future research to deploy a nuanced, more comprehensive concept of integration if it is to avoid simplistic assertions that these forms of marriage migration have a single, direct impact on integration processes