TRANSNATIONAL FAMILY REUNIONS AS LIVED EXPERIENCE: NARRATING A SALVADORAN AUTOETHNOGRAPHY

Abstract

This article explores the complex processes and emotions that characterise transnational family reunion. Using the tools of experimental ethnography, it unpacks the experiences of Marcela, a young Australian-Salvadoran, who embarked on a family reunion with members of her transnationally dispersed family in various locales: London (Ontario), Los Angeles, various towns in El Salvador, and Managua in Nicaragua. Her account of the family reunion affords an opportunity to understand the cultural complexities and emotional dynamics of these events. The encounters between guests (Marcela's family) and hosts gave rise to issues of reciprocity, envy, and guest-host dynamics. These dynamics were place specific, resulting in a much higher degree of spontaneity in encounters with other exiled family members, indicating both the shared experiences of exile and the realities, and perceptions, of socio-economic status. While the politics of reciprocity was an explicit feature in all trans-national encounters experienced by Marcela's family, it was Marcela's “cultural Australianness” that served as a constant reminder of how becoming a trans-national had changed her permanently and marked her out from her kin.

Key Words:

• trans-nationalism
• Salvadorans
• family reunion
• autoethnography

The authors thank Maruška Svašek, Thomas Wilson, and two anonymous referees for their useful feedback on an earlier version of this article.

Notes

1. The remittances El Salvadorians living abroad are sending back home make up 12.6 percent of the national GDP, recently peaking in 2004 at US$2.5 billion (US Department of State 2005; Damon 2006). Increasingly, El Salvador and its residents rely on remittances to sustain the economy as well as the day to day Salvadorian family budget, leaving the country indebted to its diaspora, for better or worse.