Transnational Families across the Atlantic: The Case of Peruvian Migrant Women in Italy and their Family Members in Peru
This research project raises questions about the interrelation between transnational migration and social inequalities, by looking at the changing nature of transnational family relations. It proposes to examine how transregional migration between Peru and Italy changes the constitution of social formations and how inequalities are reshaped in this process. Transnational families are a privileged field for studying these changes and their impacts on social inequalities from the level of everyday life. They are considered heterogeneous and socially constructed units that are shaped by unequal and changing relationships of power as well as cultural values and gender ideologies, which have an impact on, and are at the same time reshaped through processes of migration.
This research will draw on a multi-sited case study on the experiences of Peruvian migrant women in Milan, Italy, and their family members in Peru. It considers migrants to be simultaneously embedded in multi-sited transnational social fields, encompassing those who move and those who stay behind. Multi-sited ethnography is a suitable framework which allows to observe this reality beyond national borders. It adopts the technique of “following the people” to study and compare the experiences of migrants and those who have stayed in place and who are indirectly influenced by ideas, objects, and information flowing across borders. Based on this framework, the research seeks to contribute, through a critical reflection on the basic categories of sociological thought and their methodological implications, to the Cross-cutting Research Dimension: Theory and Methodology of desiguALdades.net.