More than just ‘friends’? Locating migrant domestic workers’ transnational Voluntary Kin relationships

ABSTRACT

The author explores the practices through which migrant domestic workers established Transnational Voluntary Kin relations with individuals who are non-blood or law-related. Transnational Voluntary Kin are intimate relationships, which alleviate migrants’ reproductive needs by replacing, overlapping or complementing traditional family support. Drawing from Braithwaite, Bach, Baxter, Hosek, & Wolf [(2010). Constructing family: A typology of Voluntary Kin. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 27(3), 388–407] four relationships are explored. Firstly, there are ‘More than family’ Kin that replace the care of absent or dead family members. Secondly, there are ‘Just like Family’ Kin that replace the care of physically proximate relatives unable to perform their roles. Thirdly, there are ‘Whenever needed it’ Kin that replace or overlap traditional kin aid in particular situations. Fourthly, there are ‘In law or extended’ Kin constructed through the marriage of traditional kin. Data are drawn from a multi-sited ethnography with Peruvian-Colombian migrant domestic workers and their Transnational Voluntary or Traditional kin. The analysis contributes both to the constructivist sociology of the family and transnational family studies where these relationships remain underexplored.

KEYWORDS:

• Transnational Voluntary Kin
• migrant domestic workers
• family-making practices

Acknowledgements

The author hereby swears that there are not possible financial interests to the direct application of this research. The author will like to thank the reviewers for their continuous comments and feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 All names are pseudonyms used to protect the participants’ identity.

2 Spain negotiated a visa waiver for Latin American nationals entering the Schengen Area.

3 Women represent 48% of the migrant population in Belgium and 53% of new Belgian citizens (DGSIE, 2010). Recently, statistics show that there are 17,530 Latin American citizens registered in Belgium and 60% are of them were women. There were approximately 1836 Colombians and 1102 Peruvians out which women represented 59% (DEMO, 2015).

4 Since 2011, Belgium raised requirements for family reunification, restricting access to migrants who do no't have the economic capacity. Additionally, citizenship laws now require integration-and economic capacity of migrant, for more information, see Vivas-Romero (2015).

5 Table A1 in Appendix summarizes the nature, practices, discourses and Transnational elements of such relationships.

6 The researcher added the information in brackets to improve the quote's understanding. It's not part of the original quote.

7 The acronym refers from here and on to Migrant Domestic Worker.

8 The acronym refers from here and on to Transnational Voluntary Kin.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Fonds De La Recherche Scientifique – FNRS-FRESH [grant number: F 6/40/5 – MCF/FC – 14393].