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Increases in migration from developing countries to industrialized nations results in family members living in different countries, having to arrange care for young and elderly at a distance. A common form that these transnational families take is when a parent migrates, leaving his or her children in the care of someone in the home country. This results in transnational child raising arrangements (tcras) composed of migrant parents and their children and caregivers in the countries of origin. Transnational migration studies have begun to study this phenomenon, yet they tend to give prevalence to relationships between migrant parents, especially mothers, and children. Caregivers are not a focus. This is a consequence of researchers being guided by western conceptualizations of the family where prevalence is given to the nuclear family living in geographical proximity. This paper focuses on a recent study in which all members in a transnational child raising arrangement are the focus: the migrant overseas, the caregiver or multiple caregivers at home and the child him or herself. The study uses a mixed methods approach, which incorporates surveys of children and parents, the mapping of child raising networks with the different actors of a tcra (parents, caregivers and children), and an in-depth, multi-sited ethnographic study of a select number of child raising networks, giving equal attention to all members of a tcra. This paper focuses on the second method and highlights three contributions that such a method makes to our understanding of tcras. First, the mapping of child raising networks helps to identify the perceptions of care held by different members of a tcra. Secondly, discrepancies and similarities between different actors’ perspectives help to understand how tcras function. Finally, mapping child raising networks with all actors involved, gives children a voice which is an element often missing in research about children.

A growing number of young people in origin countries reside there without one or both parents due to their parents’ international migration. However, most of the current literature overlooks the perceptions and agency of these youth due to increasing attention on what migrant parents and local caregivers do for stayer youth's experiences and aspirations. Contemporary youth studies call on emerging scholarships like this study to engage with youth for an extensive understanding of their experiences and aspirations. This is a case study of Ghanaian stayer youth's lives. I “followed” thirty-eight stayer youth for 15 months to understand their experiences and aspirations through a youth-centric ethnography. This study shows that stayer youth are agentic in shaping their experiences and aspirations over time within their transnational family context. These young people show their agency through the way they employ ICTs to maintain and shape their relationships with their parents abroad; how they mobilize broader local and transnational social support networks to ensure their educational trajectories; and the way they adapt their aspirations to match the resources that are available to them. This study shows the importance of going beyond the dyad or triad (migrant parent-stayer youth or migration parent-caregiver-stayer youth) that has characterised most transnational family studies, to account for all relationships or interactions that shape these youth's experiences and aspirations.

One in five young people across the European Union has a migration background, meaning that either they or their parents were born abroad. Many of these young people engage in visits to the country of origin on a regular basis and/or have been mobile before they migrated to Europe. Even though there is much research on the impact of migration on young people, their actual mobility has hardly been investigated. This dissertation investigates how the physical mobility to and within Ghana shapes the lives of Ghanaian-background youth living in Belgium. It does so by examining their ‘mobility trajectories’, that is, not only the migration move but all movements young people undertake over time and across geographically distinct localities, the concomitant family constellations these moves entail, and what happens during mobility. Ethnographic research in Belgium and Ghana with 25 young people of Ghanaian-background reveals how youth use their own mobility and digital media to create and maintain effective engagements, meaning the connections with people and places in the country of origin. These connections in turn shape experiences with family reunification and separation, personal growth and future pathways, and their relationship with the country of origin.

This thesis investigates the ‘transnational youth mobility trajectories’ of migrant youth, meaning all the moves that young people make in their lives, including migrations but also family visits, holidays, internships, and transitions between different school systems. An increasing proportion of young people around the world have a migration background, and recent research shows that many migrant youth in Europe travel regularly to their country of origin. Nevertheless, we know very little about the way mobility affects their lives. As part of the ‘Mobility Trajectories of Young Lives’ project (www.motrayl.com), this thesis focused on Ghanaian-background youth (15-25 years) living in Hamburg. It shows that migrant youth are very mobile, that the frequency and reasons for their mobility change over time, and that mobility has important effects on their lives in the country of residence. Experiences in the country of origin – including schooling, family environments, and other important relationships – can provide valuable resources, like confidence and motivation, and other forms of support that help migrant youth navigate schooling and life in the country of residence.

One in five young people across the European Union has a migration background, meaning that either they or their parents were born abroad. Many of these young people engage in visits to the country of origin on a regular basis and/or have been mobile before they migrated to Europe. Even though there is much research on the impact of migration on young people, their actual mobility is hardly investigated. Against this backdrop, this dissertation investigates how the physical mobility to and within Ghana shapes the lives of Ghanaian-background youth living in Belgium. It does so by examining their ‘mobility trajectories’, that is, not only the migration move but all geographical moves young people undertake over time and across geographically distinct localities, the concomitant family constellations these moves entail, and the emotional and embodied experiences young people have during mobility. Multi-sited ethnographic research in Belgium and Ghana with 25 young people of Ghanaian-background reveals how youth create and maintain affective engagements with people and places in the country of origin through their own mobility and digital media use, and how these connections in turn shape experiences with family reunification, personal growth, and their relationship with the country of origin. By including both the country of origin and residence, and by analyzing mobility over the life course and in real time, this dissertation gives insights into how young people give meaning to their transnational lives and mobility experiences, and ultimately provides a deeper understanding of the temporalities, emotionalities and impacts of youth mobility.

Many young people in Europe with a migration background grow up regularly visiting their or their parents’ country of 'origin'. Although mobility is an intrinsic part of these young people’s lives, little is known about what transpires during their trips and how this affects them. Based on 17 months of ethnographic fieldwork in the Netherlands and Ghana, this dissertation investigates how young Dutch-Ghanaians’ mobility trajectories shape their engagements with the country of ‘origin’ (i.e. transnational engagements). The concept of ‘mobility trajectories’ captures all the moves young people make over time and across geographically distinct localities, and the shifting family constellations that this entails. By looking at young people’s current trips (undertaken when they enter into adulthood) as they unfold and as part of broader trajectories, this dissertation reveals changes in terms of the people, practices and places that are important to young people during trips to Ghana throughout their life-course. More importantly, it captures the emotions and meaning-making processes underlying young people’s evolving transnational engagements. Ultimately, this dissertation provides a more nuanced understanding of the factors that shape young people’s connections to more than one country as they build a future for themselves.

‘Nederlanders and buitenlanders: A sociolinguistic ethnographic study of ethnic categorization among secondary school pupils’ is a study based on nine months of ethnographic fieldwork among pupils of the vocational track of a secondary school in Venlo, the Netherlands. Many of these pupils had a migration background, and though they were born in the Netherlands, they often referred to themselves as buitenlander (‘foreigner’), Marokkaan (‘Moroccan’), or Turk (‘Turk’), and referred to others without migration backgrounds as Nederlanders (‘Dutch people’).In this dissertation, van de Weerd combines ethnographic descriptions of the local context with ethnomethodological analyses of interactions to analyze such self- and other-categorizations. Although the use of categories such as Nederlander and buitenlander are commonly interpreted as straightforward indications of (dis) identification with a country or ethnic identity, it is argued that their meanings are constructed and negotiated in local interactions and are therefore much more complex. The pupils in this study, for instance, regularly discussed categories in association with certain clothing styles, language, or behavior, or jokingly teased each other by speaking negatively about these categories. The dissertation furthermore analyzes the relation between categorization practices and the use of different linguistic resources such as Dutch, Limburgish, Turkish, Arabic, and/ or Berber. ‘Nederlanders and buitenlanders’ may be of relevance to researchers interested in categorization in interaction, ethnicity, identification, the effects of diversification outside the metropolitan area, and more broadly, linguistic ethnography and sociocultural linguistics., Dans Néerlandais et étrangers, j'étudie la façon dont les élèves du secondaire à Venlo, ‘classe 3/4b,’ se sont référés aux hiérarchies sociales locales et sociétales, et comment ils ont traité ce sujet, en se catégorisant eux-mêmes et les uns les autres en termes ethniques et en utilisant différents moyens linguistiques. La question de recherche, introduite dans le Chapitre 1, est la suivante: Quelles sont les significations et les fonctions respectives des catégories ethniques et des moyens linguistiques utilisés pour les élèves et les enseignants de la classe 3/4b ?J'ai mené cette étude sur la base des données recueillies pendant neuf mois de travail ethnographique sur le terrain avec les élèves, et en analysant les interactions entre les élèves, les enseignants et moi-même, principalement avec l'analyse de la catégorisation des membres (ACM) et l'analyse de la conversation (AC).À peu près la moitié des élèves de la classe 3/4b sont d'origine étrangère et, bien qu'ils soient nés aux Pays-Bas, ils se classent régulièrement, eux- mêmes et les autres, sous les étiquettes ‘étranger’, ‘Marocain’ et ‘Turc’, et qualifient les autres (mais pas eux-mêmes) de ‘Néerlandais’. Cette catégorisation faisait partie des interactions quotidiennes, que ce soit en se taquinant, en faisant ses devoirs ou en racontant des ragots sur des connaissances. L'utilisation de divers moyens linguistiques (en plus du néerlandais standard, les élèves ont utilisé l'arabe, le berbère, le turc, et les dialectes régionaux de Venlo et Tegelen, entre autres, dans leurs interactions) s'est également avérée importante pour élaborer ces catégories et en discuter., Doctorat en Langues, lettres et traductologie, info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Journeys of irregular migrants are often far from easy, straightforward moves from one country to another. This is typically explained in relation to restrictive migration policies, and by migrants’ difficulties with providing financial support to their social networks in their countries of origin. Such reasoning is based on assumptions about the anticipated course of the journey and the role of migrants’ social networks. This thesis questions such assumptions and investigates the mechanisms by which journeys evolve. It shows how this evolution is related to changes taking place in migrants’ social networks and the experience of critical events. The findings stress the importance of viewing migration as part of people’s life trajectories, which can take unexpected and uncalculated turns.

Cette these examine la facon dont les migrants soudanais aux Pays-Bas et au Royaume-Uni organisent leur protection sociale, pour eux et leurs familles au Soudan, localement et au-dela des frontieres. Dans notre monde globalise, de plus en plus de personnes vivent au-dela des frontieres nationales, developpant des attaches et des responsabilites dans plus d’un Etat-nation. Toutefois, les systemes de protection sociale formels traditionnels ont ete concus pour repondre aux besoins de populations sedentaires liees a un seul pays. Dans ce contexte, cette these examine les strategies que les migrants developpent pour couvrir leurs propres besoins de protection sociale et/ou ceux de leurs familles, englobant une serie d'elements formels et informels provenant de differentes institutions (Etats, marches, organisations du tiers secteur ou reseaux sociaux informels). En prenant la famille elargie comme unite analytique principale, cette these montre que meme si certaines ressources formelles sont disponibles pour des individus migrants, elles peuvent ne pas correspondre aux choix privilegies pour la protection sociale de leur famille. En prenant en consideration le contexte soudanais, cette these souligne l’importance des normes socio-culturelles du pays d’origine sur la maniere dont le soutien intra-familial, en particulier les soins, doit etre fourni. Cette these est basee sur les donnees collectees durant 14 mois d'ethnographie multi-situee conduite avec des migrants aux Pays-Bas et au Royaume-Uni, et leurs familles au Soudan.

Migrant parents cannot always migrate with their children. This dissertation examined how the contexts of the home and host countries influenced transnational family dynamics. Ethnographic research among Ghanaian migrant parents in the Netherlands and the children they left behind in Ghana reveals that cultural norms around shared parenting facilitate translational family relationships and mitigate negative effects on individual family members, while at the same time making traditional practices more challenging. The legal and economic status of migrant parents and the options for family reunification also determine how transnational parenting is practised and what the consequences are for individual family members and the stability of the family unit as a whole.

This study is about Angolan and Nigerian parents who live in the Netherlands, but whose children reside in the country of origin. It examines whether this separation effects the wellbeing of the migrant parent. The study reveals that transnational separation can indeed have a negative impact on the wellbeing of the parents. However, this separation does not have to be problematic if good family arrangements are made, such as maintaining regular contact with the child. Furthermore, the context of migration and integration proves a crucial factor. Undocumented migrants and migrants with a low socioeconomic status are particularly prone to reduced wellbeing, partly due to limitations in migration policy that can hinder physical contact with the child.

This dissertation studies the effects of remittances and return migration on households and communities in Burundi and shows that in a conflict-affected country such as Burundi, which is one of the poorest countries the world, migration does not have the anticipated development-boosting effect that comes forward from the policy and academic literature on migration and development. The economic development impact of remittances, for example, was limited because remittances did not reach the citizens who needed it the most. Similarly, return migration led to structural inequalities between return and non-return households in terms of land ownership and was found to negatively affect the living conditions of non-return households as well. The findings of this research highlight the necessity of a basic level of development before migration can positively affect development.

This dissertation examined the relationship between family-member migration and the psychosocial health of children remaining in the origin country. Using survey data collected in Moldova and Georgia, analyses revealed that child-migrant separation does not correspond to universally negative child emotional health outcomes. In Georgia, no form of family-member migration corresponded to unfavourable psychosocial health outcomes; in Moldova, only the migration of a father corresponded to worse outcomes, and only among boys. These results suggest that the potential impacts of migration on child psychosocial health are heterogeneous and shaped by factors such as the gender of the migrant and child.

This thesis provides insight into the role of international migration in how Ghanaian couples form, transform or dissolve. It investigates if, when and where families live geographically separate from each other and if, when and where they reunify. Employing a transnational approach, this dissertation incorporated the notion that migrants are embedded in multiple contexts. This means that: 1) the contexts of the sending and receiving countries are taken into account, 2) couples that did not migrate are included, and 3) the findings are contextualized by considering the cultural and familial norms of the sending country. This thesis demonstrates that the sending country context as well as the receiving country context affects the way in which families live transnationally or reunify. Comparing migrants and non-migrants showed that international migration shapes the transnational family, and it also reveals that some types of living arrangements are related to socio-cultural practices in the sending country, which emphasizes the importance of taking the sending country context into account when studying processes related to international migration. At the same time, restrictive policies and different normative contexts in receiving countries also influence the formation and transformation of transnational family life.