Transnational families, religious participation and gender dynamics: Filipino, Sao Tomean and Indo-Mozambican immigrant women in Lisbon, Portugal

Abstract

In addition to being the object of policy and legal initiatives, families of migrant origin have become a focus of debate concerning differences and its limits. Migrants themselves, however, are also reflecting on how to manage family relationships in a changing world in which migration is mostly transnational. This article aims to discuss the influence of religious participation on the reconfiguration of processes of family dynamics promoted by three groups of migrant women who, while settled in Lisbon, maintain transnational ties with their countries of origin and with various diasporic spaces. Guiding research questions are: to what extent does religious participation provide migrant women with connections, networks and other intangible resources? How are these resources mobilised as ‘bonding' and ‘bridging' social capitals? Can such capitals become a conduit for the redefinition of family relations and female self-narratives? Comparative analysis confirms that the three groups discussed not only mobilise religious belonging and ties to generate resources, but also convert these connections into social (and other forms of) capital, thus triggering desired changes that affect the lives of their children and families in both the short and long term. While migration does not alter long-standing patterns provided by their own respective sociocultural frames of belonging, our findings reveal that the three groups of interlocutors use religious participation to explore tactics, social capitals and mobility spaces and, further, to negotiate, without subverting, specific family inequality dynamics.

Familias tradicionales, participación religiosa, dinámica de género: mujeres inmigrantes filipinas, santotomesinas e indomozambiqueñas en Lisboa, Portugal

Además de ser objeto de iniciativas políticas y legales, las familias de origen inmigrante se han vuelto el foco de debate en lo que concierne a la diferencia y sus límites. Los migrantes mismos, sin embargo, también están reflexionando sobre cómo manejar las relaciones familiares en un mundo cambiante en el cual la migración es mayormente transnacional. Este artículo apunta a discutir la influencia de la participación religiosa sobre la reconfiguración de procesos de dinámica familiar promovidos por tres grupos de mujeres migrantes que, aunque se establecieron en Lisboa, mantienen lazos internacionales con sus países de origen y con varios espacios diaspóricos. Las preguntas principales de la investigación son: ¿hasta qué punto la participación religiosa provee a las mujeres migrantes de conexiones, redes y otros recursos intangibles? ¿Cómo se movilizan esos recursos en forma de capitales sociales para la ‘construcción de vínculos' y ‘creación de puentes'? ¿Pueden esos capitales volverse un conducto para la redefinición de las relaciones familiares y las autonarrativas de las mujeres? El análisis comparativo confirma que los tres grupos analizados no solo movilizan la pertenencia y lazos religiosos para generar recursos, sino también convierten estas conexiones en capital social (y otras formas de capital), generando así cambios deseados que afectan las vidas de sus hijos e hijas y las de sus familias tanto en el corto como en el largo plazo. Aunque la migración no altera los viejos patrones determinados por sus propios marcos socioculturales respectivos de pertenencia, nuestros resultados revelan que los tres grupos de interlocutoras utilizan la participación religiosa para explorar tácticas, capitales sociales y espacios de movilidad y, además, para negociar, sin subvertir, dinámicas familiares específicas de desigualdad.

跨国家庭、信仰参与及性别动态：葡萄牙里斯本中来自菲律宾、圣多缅以及印度—莫三比克的移民女性

移民的原生家庭除了做为政策和法律倡议的对象之外，已成为有关差异及其限制的辩论焦点。但移民本身亦正在反思如何在一个移民大多数皆为跨国的变动世界中，处理家庭关係。本文旨在探讨宗教参与对于家庭动态再结构过程所产生的影响，而宗教参与被三大定居在里斯本、但却仍然与其原生国及各种离散空间维繫着跨国关係的移民女性团体所倡导。本研究的指导性问题如下：宗教参与在何种程度上为移民女性提供了连结、网络与其他无形的资源？这些资源如何被调动做为‘结合'与‘连接'的社会资本？这些资本可以成为再定义家庭关係与女性自我叙事的管道吗？比较分析証实，本研究所探讨的三大群体，不仅调动宗教归属与连带以创造资源，更将这些连结转化成为社会（以及其他形式的）资本，因而触发了影响其子女与家人的令人满意的短期及长期改变。移民虽然无法改变由他们自身社会文化的归属框架所提供的长期存在模式，但我们的研究成果，揭露了这三个对话团体运用宗教参与来探索策略、社会资本与能动空间，并以此进一步协商、而非颠覆特定的不平等家庭动态。

Keywords::

• transnational families
• religion
• gender dynamics
• immigrants
• Portugal

Palabras claves::

• familias transnacionales
• religión
• dinámica de género
• inmigrantes
• Portugal

关键词:::

• 跨国家庭；宗教；性别动态；移民；葡萄牙

Acknowledgements

The authors are most thankful to Gender, Place and Culture's anonymous reviewers for their useful comments and suggestions.

Notes

^1. According to Putnam (2000, 23), ‘bridging social capital can generate broader identities and reciprocity, whereas bonding social capital bolsters our narrower selves. (…) bonding and bridging are not “either-or” categories into which social networks can be neatly divided, but “more or less” dimensions along which we can compare different forms of social capital'.

^2. In 2010, the national authority controlling border-crossing and entrance into Portugal (SEF; Serviço de Estrangeiros e Fronteiras) estimated the presence of 540 Filipinos (129 men and 411 women) and recorded 10,495 Sao Tomean (4751 men and 5744 women). These numbers conflict with those provided by the honorary consul of the Philippines (at minimum 3000) and by the São Tomé and Príncipe Embassy (about 15,000–18,000). The Indo-Mozambicans have Portuguese citizenship and the Portuguese Constitution forbids the counting of ethnic or religious groups. We can estimate that currently 7000 Hindus of Mozambican origin live in Portugal.

^3. We opted to use pseudonyms in the quotes that follow for the sake of preserving the interviewees' anonymity. In the following sections, we will also be quoting words and expressions taken from the interviews.

^4. The notion is evoked in brackets to emphasise that women's expressive traditions are often described as ‘lower' than scriptural Hinduism, at least by certain Brahmanised sectors.

^5. In the distant and recent past, the investment by men in the symbolic capitals of women's honour and religious power was frequently transformed into social capital. Female agency was a source of accumulation of network-based capital, which however women only rarely mobilised or capitalised upon their symbolic-religious belonging, either individually or in a shared form.

Additional information

Funding

This article was funded by PEst-OE/SADG/UI4038/2014.

Notes on contributors

Susana Salvaterra Trovão

Susana Trovão is a Full Professor and the Head of the Department of Anthropology at Nova University, Lisbon. She is also a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Research in Anthropology (Centro em Rede de Investigação em Antropologia – CRIA-FCSH/UNL). The areas of interest and expertise she currently lectures in comprise Urban Anthropology; Anthropology of Religion; and Migrations, Ethnicities and Transnationalism. Among her main publications are: Das Indias. Gentes. Movimentos e Pertenças Transnacionais (From India. Transnational Movements and Affiliations), 2010; Repertórios Femininos em Construção. Dinâmicas Familiares I/ Modalidades de Participação Cívica II (Female Repertoires in Construction: Migrant Family Dynamics and Civic Participation), 2010; Filhos Diferentes de Deuses Diferentes. Usos da Religião em Processos de Inserção Diferenciada (Different Children of Different Gods: Uses of Religion and Social Integration), 2006; De Moçambique a Portugal: Reinterpretações do Hinduismo (From Mozambique to Portugal: Hinduism Reconstructed), 2001; and Antropologia Urbana (Urban Anthropology), 2000.

Sónia Cristina Caetano Ramalho

Sónia Ramalho is a PhD candidate in Globalization Studies at Nova University, Lisbon, and a member of the Centre for Research in Anthropology (Centro em Rede de Investigação em Antropologia – CRIA/FCSH-UNL). She holds a Masters in Migration, Inter-Ethicities and Transnationalism, and a degree in Anthropology. Since 2007, she has been working on several research projects related to the gendered nature of migration, civic participation among women and their children and transnational families. She has focused mostly on the migratory flows from São Tomé and Príncipe.

Maria Inês Pereira Torcato David

Inês David is a PhD candidate in Anthropology of Transnationalism, Ethnicities and Migration at Nova University, Lisbon, and a member of the Centre for Research in Anthropology (Centro em Rede de Investigação em Antropologia – CRIA/FCSH-UNL). Since her Masters in Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology at Leiden University, she has focused mostly on Media Anthropology and the medium of radio in both development contexts (East Timor) and migratory contexts (Lisbon and the Algarve, in Portugal). Additionally, she has also explored specifically female-led migration and lifestyle migration flows from, respectively, the Philippines and the UK to Portugal.