‘Like it, don’t like it, you have to like it’: children’s emotional responses to the absence of transnational migrant parents in Lombok, Indonesia

ABSTRACT

This article explores the experiences and emotions of children in rural East Lombok, Indonesia, who stay behind with relatives or neighbours while their parents leave the country for work. The article contributes to recent scholarship of children’s experiences of transnational migration in Southeast Asia by drawing out the complex emotions of children who stay behind. Based on research conducted in four ‘sending’ villages, the article describes children’s lived experiences of their parent’s transnational migration, and their intense feelings that whether they ‘like it or don’t like it’, they have no choice but to acquiesce to their parents’ long, often indeterminate absences. The research suggests that stay-behind children are entangled in community anxieties pervading the emotional economy of transnational migration, including the embodied emotion of shame (malu) which shapes children’s responses to parental absence. By focusing on children’s own views and experiences, we contribute to growing debates about the implications of migration for children’s rights and well-being in Southeast Asia.

KEYWORDS:

• Children’s emotions
• Indonesia
• migrant parents
• stay-behind children
• transnational migration
• shame

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Merantau refers to the traditional concept of leaving home to search for wealth and gain experience, and returning to one’s village with new-found status and prestige.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada; University of the Sunshine Coast.