Transnational Families in Africa

Migrants and the role of Information Communication Technologies

Maria C Marchetti-Mercer, Leslie Swartz, Loretta Baldassar, Thembelihle Coka, Glory Kabaghe, Sonto Madonsela, Lactricia Maja, Risuna Mathebula, Siko Moyo, Esther Price, Daniella Rafaely, Ajwang’ Warria, Ajwang' Warria, Maria C Marchetti-Mercer, Leslie Swartz, Loretta Baldassar, Maria C Marchetti-Mercer, Leslie Swartz, Loretta Baldassar

• Publisher: Wits University Press
• Year: 2023
• eBook ISBN: 9781776148677

This is the first book to capture the poignant stories of transnational African families and their use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in mediating their experiences of migration and caring across distance. Transnational Families in Africa analyses the highs and lows of family separation as a result of migration in three contexts: migration within South Africa from rural to urban areas; migration from other African countries into South Africa; and middle-class South Africans emigrating to non-African countries.

The book foregrounds the importance of kinship and support from extended family as well as both the responsibilities migratory family members feel and the experience of loss by those left behind.

Across the diverse circumstances explored in the book are similarities in migrants' strategies for keeping in touch, but also large differences in relation to access to ICTs and ease-of-use that highlight the digital divide and generational gaps. As elsewhere in the world, and in spite of the varied experiences in these kinship circles, the phenomenon that is the transnational family is showing no signs of receding. This book provides a groundbreaking contribution to global debates on migration from the Global South.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Part 1 Theoretical Context
• Part 2 Participants’ Stories of African Migration, Family Relations and Icts
• Part 3 Final Considerations
• Contributors
• Index