Families, Intimacy and Globalization ─ Floating Ties

Growing numbers of partners, parents, children, grandchildren and siblings are living far away from each other, yet their opportunities to stay in touch have never been greater. Smartphones, tablets and personal computers are used by parents in London to care for their children in the Philippines. Refugees use phones and international transfers to send money and support to parents overseas. Funerals, weddings and anniversaries prompt return visits by plane and are streamed online to kin around the world.

The mechanisms and processes of globalization are transforming the ways in which people ‘do’ and think about their families. Families, Intimacy and Globalization examines their experiences, charting the tensions between the freedoms and choices of late modern individuals, on the one hand, and the constraints of relational ties of love and obligation, on the other, which produce the ‘floating ties’ of global families and intimate relationships.

Using detailed examples from all corners of the globe and across the life course, from internet dating to parenting to aged care, this thought-provoking book examines the transformation of relationships by the processes of migration and the cultural and economic flows that are central to globalization.

Raelene Wilding is Associate Professor of Sociology at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. Her research explores the experiences and practices of transnational families across the life-course and across a range of migration categories, from skilled to humanitarian migrants. She has a particular interest in the circulation of care and support across national and cultural borders, and the uses of new media to maintain relationships. Her previous books include Families Caring Across Borders (Palgrave, with Baldassar and Baldock) and Race and Ethnic Relations (OUP, with Fozdar and Hawkins).