Transnational mothering and fathering: A reflection on the basis of mediated interaction processes

Abstract

The objective of this article is to reflect on transnational mothering and fathering, and specifically, on how parent-child relations and bonds are preserved from a physical distance, on the basis of mediated interaction processes in which technological and communications resources are used in order to establish connections among family members who are in two or more countries as a result of international migration processes. Thus, our starting point is the premise that immigrant mothers and fathers and their children located in the country of origin can maintain their relations and bonds despite the physical distance, by means of interaction processes that do not necessarily entail living in the same place or establishing face-to-face relations, and in which the real and the virtual, the close and the distant, are brought together. This involves not only the connection of spaces and times, but also of persons joined by kinship bonds that are constantly constructed and deconstructed in everyday family life. The first part of the article thus addresses and discusses the concepts of parenting, transnational parenting, transnational mothering, and transnational fathering, which go beyond being a mother or a father and entail new forms of building a family. The second part introduces the discussion of family interaction processes associated with mediated interaction situations, which use communications and techonological resources to generate relational and binding dynamics. This makes it possible to create conversational routines that both convey information and generate family interaction processes, in which the group and the collective, the shared and the common are built. In these interactions, emotions become a key element of everyday family life by making it possible to build affective bonds despite the physical distance.