What is the impact of transnational migration on family life? Women's comparisons of internal and international migration in a small town in Ghana

Abstract

Most scholarship on the effects of transnational migration on family life has argued that such migration results in profound shifts and dislocations in family practices and gender ideologies. Much of this work, however, has overlooked processes of internal migration: How different is transnational migration from internal migration in its impact on family life? By comparing families of transnational migrants with those of internal migrants in a small town in Ghana, I explore the effect of place and distance-as generated by human activity-on the maintenance of parent-child and spousal relations. I conclude that transnational migration exacerbates conflicts that exist in families unaffected by transnational migrations. © 2011 by the American Anthropological Association.