‘I think I'm more free with them'—Conflict, Negotiation and Change in Intergenerational Relations in African Families Living in Britain

ABSTRACT

While the family is increasingly being recognised as pivotal to migration, there remain too few studies examining how migration impacts on intergenerational relationships. Although traditional intergenerational gaps are intensified by migration, arguably there has been an over-emphasis on the divisions between ‘traditional’ parents and ‘modern’ children at the expense of examining the ways in which both generations adapt. As Foner and Dreby [2011. “Relations Between the Generations in Immigrant Families.” Annual Review of Sociology 37: 545–564] stress, the reality of post-migration intergenerational relations is inevitably more complex, requiring the examination of both conflict and cooperation. This article contributes to this growing literature by discussing British data from comparative projects on intergenerational relations in African families (in Britain, France and South Africa). It argues that particular understandings can be gained from examining the adaptation of parents and parenting strategies post-migration and how the reconfiguration of family relations can contribute to settlement. By focusing on how both parent and child generations engage in conflict and negotiation to redefine their relationships and expectations, it offers insight into how families navigate and integrate the values of two cultures. In doing so, it argues that the reconfiguration of gender roles as a result of migration offers families the space to renegotiate their relationships and make choices about what they transmit to the next generation.

KEYWORDS:

• African migration
• migrant families
• intergenerational relations
• gender and transmission

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all of the participants and community workers involved in this project who were kind enough to give us their time and support. We would also like to extend our thanks to the Project Researcher Dr Petra Aigner and to the British Academy for funding this project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. British study was funded by the British Academy Research Development Awards, the French Study was funded by National Retirement Fund of Public Social Security (CNAV) and the South African by North Western University.

2. See for example, CLG (2008); Home Office (2005, 2008); Cameron (2011).

3. Broadly research has defined transnationalism as being simultaneously embedded in more than one society (Levitt 2009), a process ‘by which immigrants forge and sustain multi-stranded social relations that link together their societies of origin and settlement’ (Pasura 2008, 87).

4. Three core features of diaspora are; a history of dispersal, connections with the original or imagined homeland and a collective identity or boundary-maintenance (Pasura 2008, 87).

5. The reality of gender relations are far more complex and have more in common with gender in the west than these ‘cultural ideals’ would give credit (Kleist 2010, 189).

6. British Academy Research Development Award—816/99.

7. The sample comprised of six mother and daughter, seven mother and son, three father daughter and four father son pairs.