Presentation

Within the seminar cycle of the Migration Studies Research Group, we will present some of the results from the Project “Immigrant Families: a longitudinal study of Brazilians, Cape-Verdeans and Ukrainians in Portugal”, focusing on the complexity of social interactions operated at different moments of a migration project[1] experienced – and described – by each individual, namely family interactions which are built and rebuilt, and in a comprehensive perspective, which belongs to the interlocutors themselves (family networks may include groups of friends who are considered as family, neighbours who considered as family, among others).

The concept of family is very distinct, according to the subject and the initial sociocultural and economic context, and will be analyzed in a dynamic perspective, as a process in constant construction. Thus, we will approach the "close relationships” (cf. Carsten 2000)[2]of the interviewed subjects, the effective relationships, the relationships which they wish to strengthen, as well as the distances created and/or imposed in the “origin” country and in the “host” country. Thus, we analyze individual and family courses, which will allow recovering social, cultural and political courses, namely in a migration context, beyond the analysis focused only on kinship relationships.

We start from the premise that kinship relationships are always in constant redefinition and do not necessarily correspond to a reality of consanguinity. We consider them as sociability strategies, as referential elements (among many other), ultimately of identity, which (can) help situating and interpreting the world.

Some of the questions to be asked – We Intend to Understand:

a) how a specific migration course interferes in the “familiar” models and practices and vice-versa, how, and to what extent, someone’s familiar practices constrain and/or strengthen a certain migration project.

b) how the notions of family are perceived by each Interviewee/family, at the present moment and in different stages of life .

Examples of questions to be answered: Who “is” considered as family nowadays? How is family perceived by each person? To what extent has the migration experience created new family models? Are these models realized and/or (also) idealized?

We will analyze the universe of established relationships, the effective or realized ones, the affective or idealized ones, developed by the interviewed subjects, people who have the migrant status in common. Thus, we will be able to reflect on support networks, which are mobilized by social agents, as well as those which are (or not) made available to someone who arrives at a new territory. We will look at relational universes as resources which mirror and transform the experienced places, resources which affect socioeconomic positions held at a moment in time, resources which mirror and (re)build “policies" (in the sense of actions expressing intentions beyond the individual) of ways of social coexistence.

Project which is also social, cultural, political.

Carsten, Janet, 2000, in Cabral Pina João, Lima, Antónia Pedroso de, 2005, “Como Fazer uma História de Família: Um exercício de Contextualização Social”, Etnográfica, IX – 2: 355 – 388, CEAS.