Living in “Temporariness”:
The Experiences of Lithuanian Transnational Families
Milda Saltenyte
July 1, 2015
Research Master Social Sciences
Thesis Supervisor: Kristine Krause
Second Reader: Walter Nicholls
Student Number: 10635491
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Living in “Temporariness”:
The Experiences of Lithuanian Transnational Families
Milda Saltenyte
Research Master Social Sciences, University of Amsterdam
July 2015
In this article I explore how circular migration, which characterizes the East-West intra-European mobilities, sets the ground for the experiences and realities of transnational everyday family life. The paper is based on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with Lithuanian families that live across Lithuania – Denmark. I show how the multi-directional movement across borders is accompanied by a strong sense of temporariness, which paradoxically tends to last. It reveals the underlying tension between proximity of family as a norm and migration as a strategy to provide better living for the family. A clear divide between “work” and “(family) life” emerges and in the case of male migration, heteronormative family norms are strengthened. The paper also questions the power of new media technologies in actively “creating” family. In the cases where family members constantly circulate between physical presence and absence, the limitations of communication technologies are well-articulated, as it is contingent upon the expectations of being physically together in the near future. These dynamics are explored by adapting “family practice” approach (Morgan, 1996; 2011) and focusing on emotions, which, I argue, are inherently linked to each other. Connecting emotions and practices brings attention to action and the routinized everyday nature of embodied experiences.
Keywords: Circularity, Temporariness, Intra-European Migration, Transnational Families, Family Practices, Emotions, Lithuanian Migrants in Denmark, Heteronormative Family Norms, ICT
Introduction
A large proportion of migrants in today’s world are no longer “first movers”, but have already undertaken multiple trips across borders in order to work (Vertovec, 2007). Migration shifted to the diverse forms of international mobility, in which “more migrants have consecutive stays in different countries” (Penninx et al., 2008, p. 4). It aptly characterizes the intra-European migration flows, associated with the relative absence of legal restrictions and borders that would constrain migrants and lead to longer stay or permanent one-directional migration. The movement, which can be described as temporal, fluid and circular in nature rather than static, especially intensified since the accession of new European Union (EU) member states in 2004 (A8) and 2007 (A2) and has become the defining characteristic of East-West migration from Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. Most CEE migrants are considered to be “transnational commuters or circular migrants” (Enbergsen et al., 2010, p. 137) engaged in a short-term movement forwards and backwards across borders. The researchers working under the name of “transnationalism” were the first to recognize that
2 migrants maintain regular contacts with their home countries and that migration does not end with the settlement (see e.g. Basch, 1994; Levitt & Glick Schiller, 2004; Faist, 2010).
The circular migration, which encompasses multi-directional movements across borders and constantly changing states of being together and being apart, sets the ground for the way migration is experienced and lived and how family relationships develop in this context. The focus on transnational families emerged quite recently, since early 2000, examining a variety of topics from the intra and inter-familial relationships to different care-giving arrangements and communication practices, among others (Mazzucato & Schans, 2008; Zentgraf & Chinchilla, 2012). Transnational families are broadly defined as “families that live some or most of the time separated from each other, yet hold together and create something that can be seen as a feeling of collective welfare and unity, namely ‘familyhood’, even across national borders” (Bryceson & Vuorela 2002, p. 3, my emphasis). However, the spectrum of “some” and “most of the time” may exert a considerable difference in the way separation and distance is experienced and dealt with. One can expect that the experiences of those who live at a distance from their family members for prolonged periods of time are different from those families who constantly circulate between physical absence and presence.
The specificity of context affects the ways in which transnational activities are articulated and in order to grasp the meaning and creation process of transnational families, temporal and spacial dimensions have to be taken into account. I take the case of Lithuania, in which the short-term labour migration became a trend and especially intensified after the country joined EU in 2004 (Thaut, 2009). Generally, it has one of the highest emigration rates among European member states (European Migration Network, 2014). Since the country’s independence in 1990, around one fourth of the population have left the country and it is estimated that, on average, 30 000 people emigrate every year (Census Data of Lithuania, 2011). The focus on Lithuanian migration adds to documenting the multiplicity of transnational family arrangements and specific forms of mobilities that are created within the context of an enlarged Europe.1
I draw on the ethnographic study I conducted in fall 2014, among Lithuanian families that live across Lithuania – Denmark.2 A multi-sited research strategy is combined with different qualitative methods, such as
in-depth interviewing using visualization techniques and participant observation, in an attempt to get closer to the experiences and realities of everyday family life that span across national borders. I raise the question: how is a sense of family (re)created when looked at through the emotional experiences of Lithuanian
1 As Baldassar and Merla (2013, p. 12) note, compared to the Filipino and Latin American context, which has been extensively studied, documenting transnational family life from the Eastern parts of the continent deserves further elaboration. Although there has been a recent attention to Polish migrants in Britain (e.g. Ryan et al., 2007; 2010), many other migrant groups remain understudied.
2 To be precise, the case of migration between Lithuania and Denmark represents the Baltic-Nordic migration flow. Poland and Lithuania are considered as the main sending countries to Nordic region, which is one of the most popular destinations for “westbound labour migrants since the EU accession, after the British Isles” (Friberg & Eldring, 2013, p. 12).
3 transnational family members? More specifically, I attempt to understand how the particular type of circular migration influences the way these families are being done through distance.
The following article can be seen as stemming from different strands of research and bridging such fields of interest as migration studies, particularly in the CEE region, transnational family studies and family research more generally, as well as research on human emotions. My main points of departure are (1) Morgan’s (1996; 2011) theory of “family practices”, with the emphasis on a fluid notion of family as being embedded in everyday practices, and (2) the focus on emotions, mainly drawn from the sociology of emotions and the notion of “emotion work” (Hochschild, 1979; 1983). Emotions can be seen as standing at the heart of the process of human mobility (Svasek, 2008, p. 865), yet it is the dimension which is often silenced, especially in the sociological enquiry (Craib, 1995; Turner & Stets, 2005).3 Even though I do not try to disentangle the
complexities of emotion per se, I use an emotion lens as having a signaling function to what is important. I also argue that emotions and practices are inherently linked to each other; a certain emotionality is a part of every practice and, by the same token, emotions are being acted out within practices. Connecting practices and emotions brings attention to action and the routinized everyday nature of embodied experiences, which helps to account for the active process of “creating” family through distance and opens up the possibility of talking about different dimensions of transnational family living.
After spelling out in more detail the theoretical and methodological framework upon which this study is built, I describe the temporary and circular nature of migration that Lithuanian transnational families are widely a part of. I explicate how it relates to the sense of temporariness (however lasting it may actually be), which in turn comes from the constant tension and balancing between proximity of family as a norm and migration as a strategy to provide better living for the family. I then move on to analyze how a constant sense of temporariness is experienced and felt in everyday family life. I show that it is expressed in future orientation and a clear divide between “work” and “(family) life”, thus strengthening heteronormativity within the family. After looking at how gender roles figure in transnational family practices, I turn to describing long-distance communication and its role in mediating family relationships through distance. I question the power of new media technologies in actively “creating” family and argue that, in the cases where family members constantly circulate between physical presence and absence, communication through technologies are immediately contrasted with the periods of unification. This constant comparison further sharpens the well-articulated limitations of long-distance communication for those involved. Approaching family life through the lens of practices and emotions signals differentiated gender roles, relates to certain patterns and means of communication, and helps to grasp the experiences of mobility and the phenomenon of migration more generally.
3 Nevertheless, recently the effort has been made to explicitly focus on emotions in transnational family research (e.g. Baldassar, 2008; Ryan, 2008; Svasek, 2010). Skrbis (2008, p. 236) calls for a stronger emphasis on emotion and notes that it should be seen “as constitutive of the transnational family experience itself.”
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Family Practices
One of the ways in which family can be conceptualized and studied is by following Morgan’s (1996; 2011) theory of “family practices”. The term family practices suggests that a sense of family is “constituted through engaging in practices” (Morgan, 1996, p. 10), which helps to see how family connections are actualized in everyday life.4 The fuzziness of the term family and the fact that boundaries between family and non-family
are often blurry, can be tackled by a so-called “family as adjective” approach (Morgan, 1996). The use of phrases such as “family life” and “family processes” allows one to analyze a set of social activities through the particular family optic, but recognizes that it is not an exclusive or the only way in which the subject can be explored (ibid., p. 5). The impetus for Morgan’s (2011a) use of the family practice approach was to introduce fluidity and overcome static notions of the family as “the thing”, instead emphasizing an “active” element. It implies that family is about process, which opens up the possibility of talking about “doing family” (ibid., p. 5), in a similar way as one can talk about “doing gender” (Kvande, 2007). It also means that family members are not statically defined as mother, father, etc., but are seen as doing mothering or fathering (Morgan, 1996). Other dimensions conveyed in the family practices approach are everyday character and a sense of repetition or regularity. Cheal (2002, p. 12) offers a definition of family practices as consisting “of all the ordinary, everyday actions that people do, insofar as they are intended to have some effect on another family member.” This approach has been criticized for overemphasizing agency, thus neglecting structural conditions that influence the ways family can be “done”. The legal dimension of family, and how it is defined by nation-states and institutional actors impacts upon the experiences of family members. National policies and international regulations often impose restrictions and shape what is considered to be “family” (cf. Kilkey & Merla, 2013). As Widmer et al. (2008, p. 3) put it: “family relationships, because of their complexity, are likely to remain highly patterned and embedded in the social structures of late modernity. (...) resources are scarce, and individuals do not decide about their allocation in a social vacuum“. As a response to this criticism, Morgan (2011a, p. 67) remarks that “the fact that people may ‘do’ family or carry out family practices does not necessarily mean that they willingly chose to do so.”
Also, the approach of examining family from the perspective of practices pays less attention to individuals’ perceptions, comprehending family from members’ points of view. If the family practice approach tries to go beyond pre-defined notions of family by emphasizing the “active” element, others, in their attempts to adapt an open conceptualization of family, take individuals’ perceptions as a starting point. For example, Levin (1993) develops the family mapping method as a way to map members’ conceptualizations of what
4 Morgan was of course not the first to introduce “practice” and his approach can be placed under the broader “practice theory" umbrella (see Reckwitz, 2002; Schatzki, 1996). He himself lists numerous influences that shaped his thinking, from feminism (it‘s critical look at gender divisions), ethnomethodology (investigation of everyday practical life), post-modern thought (notions of fluidity and openness), and the practice theory of Pierre Bourdieu (Morgan, 2011b, para. 2.3).
5 family is.5 Levin (1993) argues that individuals perceive family in their own ways and instead of placing
definitions of family as “truth” told by the researchers, the aim is to get closer to the ways in which individuals conceptualize family themselves. It follows that a “definition of family should draw from the everyday world of the person” (ibid., p. 84). What bridges these seemingly different approaches, one that focuses on individuals’ perceptions and interpretations and the other which examines actions, is the emphasis on the everyday character. In order to study and understand the notion of family, it is important to look at the varying ways in which family is perceived as well as how it is practiced in everyday life.
Another key dimension through which family in general, and transnational family in particular, can be explored is by viewing emotion as central to everyday family life. Morgan (2011a, p. 111) himself, in his later elaborations on family practices, brings in emotion, arguing that: “our very understanding of family practices, practices which are oriented to other family members and through which a sense of family is created and recreated, would seem to have emotions at the heart of it”. The importance of positioning emotion within family relations, also comes from the fact that “families are not only seen to be legitimate sites for the expression of emotion but, in some senses, required location for emotions” (ibid., p. 124). If tears may be permitted only in certain occasions in a public space, a private and more intimate context may be a setting where emotions are expected to be expressed more openly and with more frequency. Even though it applies to family in general, the transnational nature of migration experiences may further amplify emotionality. However, this raises the question, what do we mean when we say “emotions”? And, when combined, how can attempts to conceptualize emotion and the practice approach inform each other?
Emotions within Social Context
Defining emotion is considered to be one of the unresolved issues within the research on human emotions. Difficulty comes from the fact that emotions function on, as Turner (2009, p. 340) aptly puts it, “many different levels of reality—biological and neurological, behavioral, cultural, structural, and situational.” Having this in mind, emotion can be approached from the multicomponential perspective, conceiving emotions as complexes that emerge from the interplay between several elements – (1) appraisals of situational cues, (2) physiological or bodily changes, (3) cultural labels, and (4) expressive gestures (Thoits, 1989, p. 318; Turner, 2009, p. 341; Mesquite, 2003).Also, emotion can be viewed from a dual perspective as both biological and social, recognizing that biology plays an important role but seeing social context as a constitutive element of emotion, which enables emotion expressions (Turner & Stets, 2005). In other words, emotions are only intelligible within a social context and are formed in social activity.
One of the most influential theories that explicates the mechanisms of how socio-cultural context influences emotions is developed by A. Hochschild (1979; 1983) who introduced the “emotion-management”
5 Levin’s research steams from the combination of psychotherapy and social psychology and her participation in debates within family therapy. For a detailed review and explanation of Levin‘s family model, see Juozeliūnienė et al. (2012).
6 perspective. Hochschild proposed the notion of “emotion labour”, which refers to the use and management of emotions in an organizational and private setting. When referring to private situations, the term “emotion work” is applied, which denotes “the act of evoking or shaping, as well as suppressing, feeling in oneself”, in order to conform to the dominant expectations in one’s social setting (Hochschild, 1979, p. 561). It is built on the premise that different situations call for different rights and duties of feeling, i.e. a certain situation defines what and how people are supposed to feel. Thus, it contains “feeling rules” that govern the feelings “appropriate to the situation” (ibid., p. 552). These feeling rules understood as social guidelines make emotion work necessary in the first place. They are learned through the processes of socialization and direct the duration and intensity of emotion, as well as appropriate emotional behavior (Ryan, 2008, p. 300).6
Looking at how emotions are expressed, concealed and otherwise managed, becomes a way of paying attention to contradictions and tensions that arise in a transnational family setting, as well as strategies of dealing with these situations. This perspective also opens up space for other closely related categories; for instance, it recognizes that family life is strongly gendered (Carling et al., 2012). Men and women have different roles within the family and so there are different expectations and processes surrounding, for example, fatherhood and motherhood. Individuals’ practices and their responses to separation differ, relating to broader networks of gender relations in different societal contexts. There are considerable cultural variations and shifts in the structure of feelings and their relation to gender ideologies. However, instead of presenting historical analysis of changes in emotion culture, I explore how these themes are played out in everyday family life, which brings me back to the “practice” side of emotion.
Linking Practices and Emotions
The very conceptualization of practices already includes the emotion component. Reckwitz (2002) defines practice as,
[A] routinized type of behavior which consists of several elements, interconnected to one other: forms of bodily activities, forms of mental activities, ‘things’ and their use, a background knowledge in the form of understanding, know-how, states of emotion and motivational knowledge. (p. 249, my emphasis)
It follows, then, that every practice contains a certain emotionality and, to turn it the other way around, emotions are acted out within practices. As a focus on practices is inherently tied to an interest in the everyday life-worlds of individuals (Reckwitz, 2002, p. 244), making explicit the connection between emotions and practices brings in the everyday character of emotions. Thus, the practice approach with its focus on routine, deepens the understanding of emotions beyond a certain peak emotional event or heightened emotions, such as anger or distress, to the everyday emotional experiences that often remain unrecognized (Morgan, 1996,
6 Hochschild developed her theory by elaborating on Goffman’s work (1959; 1967), who focused on how people attempt to conform outwardly and manage their impressions. Hochschild then extends this approach and argues that people also do so inwardly by managing feelings.
7 p. 126). Also, to view practices as being part and parcel of emotions, rest on the idea that emotions exist in action. Emotions can be seen as emerging within encounters, relations and actions (Boiger & Mesquita, 2012). Adding practice to a conceptualization of emotion adds yet another important aspect, i.e. embodied emotions. Practices can be seen as bodily activities, which include mental and emotional activities that are themselves bodily (Rekwitz, 2002, p. 251). Thus, conceiving emotions through practices brings attention to action and the routinized everyday nature of embodied being in the world.
Going back to the context of family, these characteristics nicely tie into the family practice approach, in which families are viewed as being “done” by engaging in everyday family activities. Families can then be seen as created through concrete emotion practices, which instead of simply belonging to an individual’s “inner” world, are shared within family (Morgan, 1996, p. 126). Finally, if we hold that emotions are relational, i.e. emerging within relationships7, and that family is about relationships (as it is carried out by and between
people who are related to each other), then it is the emotional dimension which can open up a window for understanding the phenomenon of a transnational family.
Multi-Sited Research on Lithuanian Transnational Families
Studying families that live in spatial separation presents a challenge of crossing multiple national contexts, which means moving beyond one country and simultaneously taking into account the agency of the different actors involved. As I set myself up to the challenge of grasping transnational family life, I anticipated conducting multi-sited research (Marcus, 1995), which involved traveling to both sending and receiving countries. Further, I attempted to use matched sample approach, where the unit of analysis was networks of people linked to each other across national borders (Mazzucato, 2008).8
The fieldwork process started in Lithuania9 and, due to the connections I was able to establish with
multiple transnational families, whose husbands were working in Denmark, this country became the second research site that allowed me to delve into the case of intra-European migration flow. The main part of my research sample included five families living across Lithuania – Denmark. Each “nuclear” family consisted of wife, husband and two to three children. I first made contacts, interviewed and spent time with the family members that lived in Lithuania, spread out across bigger cities as well as smaller villages. In almost all of the cases it was the wife and children that I was able to meet. I then traveled to Denmark and conducted interviews with the husbands (of the same families that I met in Lithuania) who all worked in the same construction company at that time and more or less knew each other. After interviewing the informants in Denmark, I
7 Scholars have argued that emotions can be seen as arising in the context of relationships and it is through relation to other bodies (both human and non-human) that emotions get a sense and meaning (Burkitt, 2002, p. 151).
8 Matched sample can be contrasted to unmatched sample multi-sited research, where the unit of analysis is individuals who are studied on both sides of migration processes but not directly linked to each other (Mazzucato, 2008, p. 74). 9 Me being Lithuanian made it easier to access the field, as well as through the shared experiences get a closer understanding of the life-worlds of my research participants.
8 returned to Lithuania for the follow-up meetings with the family members. Additionally, ten interviews were conducted with individuals (from nine different families), who have someone from their family living in different European countries.10 These cases helped me to further contextualize different situations and
experiences of transnational family life and emotional dynamics involved. However, the subsequent analysis is mainly based on the core-case of 5 families, with which I was able to engage in both ends of the transnational spectrum.
Research was conducted by combining different qualitative methods: (1) interview data employing a “family mapping” method was supplemented with (2) participant observation, i.e. spending time with the families in their natural environment. I was closely involved with two out of five families and had a chance to spend longer periods of time with them, engaging in their daily activities. “Family mapping” as another qualitative research technique, designed by Norwegian professor Irene Levin (1993), was used. It consists of three main parts: (1) making a family list, (2) drawing a family map, and (3) conducting a verbal interview. Through these different stages verbal and non-verbal information is combined. It gives an opportunity to visualize family relationships, which evokes what Skolnick (1973) calls backstage knowledge – “hidden knowledge that everyone has, but usually do not articulate” (Levin, 1993, p. 86). This method was mainly deployed as a specific mode of interaction during the interview, which enabled active participation and creativity of participants and in turn reduced the corrective intrusion by me as a researcher. The triangulation of observation and “family mapping” method involving in-depth interviews provided me with an opportunity to immerse into subjective meanings and perceptions of family members, at the same time accounting for practices of family making.
Circular Migration and a Sense of Lasting Temporariness
In the sample of families that I had a chance to research, there were predominantly male labour migrants who commuted to Denmark to work in a construction company while their families – wife with children – stayed in Lithuania. While Denmark was the country of destination at the time, most of the informants had a previous working experience abroad, including such countries as UK, Germany, Norway, and Finland. These men were construction workers, often employed on a project basis. Thus, their stays would last from six weeks up to four months, after which they would come back home to Lithuania for around two to three weeks and then leave again for another project.
Those who are engaged in this type of circular migration treat work abroad as a temporal project to earn money. After a satisfactory sum of money is saved, workers return home until the next job opportunity and necessity for money arises. All Lithuanian transnational families in my research had a clearly defined reason for saving up a certain amount of money. In many cases, it was the goal of building a family house that
9 motivated them to undertake work abroad.11 However, these short-term plans tend to occur many times as
always something new, another “clearly defined goal”, comes up that requires economic support. This results in what Grzymala-Kazlowska (2005) calls “lasting temporariness”. Repeated movement of leaving home and coming back, staying mobile for as long as possible, becomes a strategy to maintain a certain quality of life. Migration is then treated as “a temporary sojourn abroad to earn money” (ibid., p. 682). However, this movement and periods of separation encompass more than repeated temporary stays abroad that can be objectively measured in definite periods of time. What lies at the core of circular migration (however lasting it may actually be) is a strong sense of temporariness.
Research participants, male workers themselves and their families who stay in Lithuania, frequently talk about the feeling that the situation of separation is only short-lasting. Both sides, those who travel to Denmark and those who stay in Lithuania, be it spouse or children, reiterate the point that migration “always seems just for a little bit”. The feeling of temporariness is expressed by Rimas (36 y. o.), a husband and a father of two, who recently came to Denmark to work with this being his very first experience of working abroad. He moved to Denmark a few months ago and is already planning his return to Lithuania for the Christmas holidays. As Rimas explains,
I am only here temporarily. I am not planning to work here for a long time, maybe for a year. If everything goes well, if I like it, if things in the company go smoothly, and so on, then I am planning to stay here for a year. But I don’t know. We agreed with wife until Easter, but now when I come back [for Christmas], I will talk to her, maybe I will work for a year and that’s it. And I won’t go anymore.
Rimas talks about his particular migration experience as a one-time plan to save money and sets a clear time-frame when it should be over. Nevertheless, he mentions extending the time of working in Denmark from “until Easter” (which would be around six/seven months) to one year, which already points to the period that is longer than initially anticipated. The same paradox of lasting temporariness can be depicted in the account by another research participant Dalia, a 47 y. o. care administrator in the local hospital, whose husband has been traveling to Denmark to work for around eight years, while raising three children in Lithuania.
He just thought he would go there for one time to see how it works out. And then later for maybe two or three years, he would come back and when somebody asked, sister or other relatives, whether he would go again, he always said “I don’t know if I will leave again”. So during those few weeks when he was back, he would always say “I don’t know if I will go again”. But then after a couple of years, we saw that we can make/build something here [in Lithuania] and then two of our children started going to university and they needed support, and then there was no question left whether he would go again.
Different life course events, such as children going to university, come across changing the period of migration from “only one time” to not even raising the question whether to leave, but when. Every time something else
11 Building a house as a symbol of family (and what it means to have family and home) was a leitmotif throughout the whole research.
10 comes up - after children are done studying, for instance12 - then the old dream of building a house can finally
be realized. There is always a reason to stay, but every time it seems just for a little bit longer. Further in the conversation Dalia notes that, “[e]very time he leaves, you think that it might be the last time. You think maybe it’s enough, maybe this time we will save up enough. We will finish the house and he won’t leave anymore”.
This type of migration, characterized by a constant mobility, is intermingled with a strong sense of temporariness as separation is expected to be over soon. Frequently there is a discrepancy between the perception and feeling of “a short-lasting project” and the actual migration period. Instead of seeing it as a long-term process, migration is rather perceived as a combination of multiple short-term periods, which can be understood as a way of dealing with a situation in which family members live across distance. It raises the question, however, what exactly are the underlying tensions which transnational family members have to “deal with” and why is this outlook of temporariness needed in the first place?
Underlying Tensions of “Lasting Temporariness”
A constant sense of temporariness points to the tension between achieving economic goals through migration and being together, which is considered imperative to family life. There is a negotiation between the economic benefits that migration is expected to bring and the emotional costs related to being separate and “missing out” on family life. This contradiction can be identified in Marius’ (29 y. o.) account, who recently got married and has a two-year old boy. He has been traveling back and forth to Denmark for the past two years to work and has previous experience working in Germany.
I think often about the family. You work, work, and then think “Why do I need this money?” You earn a few litas more, but what‘s the point. But then you know that you need this and you need that, and you think, I will stay longer. When you come back, you think “that‘s it, I am not leaving anymore“. You think so, but... If it was a good life in Lithuania, you would live in Lithuania. It would be fine, if you earned enough. There are jobs in Lithuania, of course, but it is physically demanding and they don‘t understand that they need to pay for it. I suffered already not once, for example, I had to beg for my own money that I earned.
The struggle between wanting to have a secure job and proper working conditions and at the same time create a family life in one’s home country becomes apparent. It creates a situation in which husbands have to juggle between multiple roles and contradicting sets of norms, which may evoke conflicting emotions (Thoits, 1990). On the one hand, due to the widespread nature and intensity of labour migration in Lithuania, work abroad becomes a common practice. In some segments of population, migration as a short-term project leading to the improvements of family life can be seen as a norm in itself. As Rimas explains,
We wanted to build a summer house. First we were thinking of taking a loan. But then others were saying, “go and try working abroad”, and I thought to myself “why not?” At first I was curious, I have never worked
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anywhere else, so I wanted to see how it is. Others are going and telling all the stories so I thought I would try too.
Thus, working elsewhere in order to save money is perceived as a rather natural thing to do. On the other hand, it contradicts with the predominant norm of family proximity which, when faced with the experience of migration, creates ambiguities for those involved.
A Norm of Living Together
There is an overarching sense that “family has to be together” and it is the co-presence and being in one home that makes the family. As Jonas, a 30 y. o. construction worker who for the past four years had jobs in Norway, Finland and is currently working in Denmark, while his wife Laura (28 y. o.) and their two sons are residing in Lithuania, bluntly puts it: “Maybe the financial situation is improved, but on the other hand, I still think that the father has to be at home.”
Being physically together is perceived as constitutive to what family is. When I asked my informants when they felt most as a family, they unitarily pointed to the moments and situations that are grounded in physical co-presence, e.g. celebrations, such as Christmas or Easter, or trips when everyone is present and engaging in a common activity. The Christmas Eve is particularly emphasized as an event in which a feeling of family arises. The practical dimension of being physically together, while, for instance, preparing food and exchanging gifts, is accompanied by a symbolic meaning of celebration, which creates the unity and a sense of family. Such events, which are rooted in repeated practices, provide occasions for creating and re-creating family and generate an emotional experience of family living.13
Also, the key moments, when the necessity of being together as a family becomes crucial and where the tension caused by migration may arise, are memorable life-course events and special achievements. Dalia’s recollection of her daughter’s high school graduation ceremony illuminates this point.
Dalia: He [husband] was back for our son’s graduation, but to the graduation of my oldest daughter I went alone. And I felt so uncomfortable. It was so uncomfortable I can’t even express it in words how uncomfortable it was. And I said I never again want to go to such big event alone. Of course, there are people who live alone and always go, but I don’t know, maybe I have to accept the situation, maybe I have to get used to it, but I am not ready for it. … I don’t know, I was feeling very bad and my daughter didn’t really like the graduation either. Interviewer: Did you show somehow at the time how you felt?
Dalia: Well, I tried not to show, but inside I felt, I don’t know, dead. Of course I didn’t show it when everyone was around, I didn’t cry nor did I appear sad, I did what I had to do, but it was very robot-like… I felt bad throughout the whole celebration.
13 Here Durkheim’s (1965 (1917)) discussion on rituals and practices associated with the heightened emotional intensity can be helpful in understanding the meaning of such celebrations. On family rituals and ceremonies, see also Morgan (2011a).
12 Graduation ceremonies, which can be seen as ritualized key events in a life cycle, contain feeling rules which govern the way such events are expected to be experienced, for example, as a cheerful and happy celebration. However, there was a discrepancy between the way Dalia actually felt - uneasy and uncomfortable14 - and the
way one is supposed to feel in a given situation. By hiding her emotions and acting in the appropriate way, “I did what I had to do”, Dalia engaged in a great deal of emotion work. What made Dalia feel uneasy and “dead” inside, was being alone in the situation in which family is “supposed” to be together. The absence of father/husband brakes the expectation that family members have to be all present during the key life-course events. Emotional struggle is then induced when the common practice of family creation is interrupted by the separation.
By bringing these examples I attempt to show that the difficulty of being separate comes not only from the longing for physical touch of another person but also from the normative understanding that family has to be together. Even though informants indicate a number of positive aspects of not living together all the time, e.g. less everyday arguments, less need for compromises and more freedom in everyday life habits, which they argue often lead to strengthened relationships between spouses and other family members, it is the absence of physical co-presence that is considered as most challenging and frustrating of all.
The circulation between working abroad and returning to the home country to spend time with the family can then be seen as an expression of the negotiation between the norm of being together and a common practice of working abroad. As Marius notes,
It is only now that I am somehow prepared to stay for four months here. But I want to talk to my employer and agree that I could work here for two months and then come back home for holidays for two weeks, and then again work two months and two weeks of holidays. To stay longer is too hard for me and my family.
This constant commuting becomes a way of achieving financial goals without making it “too hard for the family”. Yet, if migration (however short) interrupts being together as a key component of family life, why is it that the whole family do not migrate to the other country? Besides all the practical explanations that can be given (e.g. lack of language skills), the underlying logic of temporal migration as a short-term project, which is a way of earning additional money needed to build life in Lithuania, is crucial. It is not considered as a long-term plan where the whole family would move. The constant coming back is then a way of combining both the achievement of economic goals and the life in Lithuania. However, this circulation, which often tends to last, goes hand in hand with emotional struggles and a vicious circle of changing states of being together and being separate. As Dalia points out,
It is always hard to send him [husband] off, very hard. But when he comes back after a longer time, when we meet, I need time to get used to him. And when we finally adapt and click, he has to leave again. And it’s hard again and everything starts from beginning.
13 It further begs the question, how this process of circulation, which comes with a strong sense of temporariness, is expressed in everyday family life.
Working in Denmark and Living in Lithuania
The important aspect of the way temporariness is experienced is the focus on the future dimension of time, which encompasses future expectations, hopes, goal-orientation and constant planning. This living in the future includes both the nearby future of coming back for a visit which is always on the mind of those who leave and those family members who stay in Lithuania, as well as future planning of what is supposed to come out of working abroad. A very clear orientation towards a specific goal is expressed by Lina (31 y. o. ), the wife of Rimas, who just moved for construction work to Denmark. As Lina puts it,
We have a goal, and that goal is very clear. We want to build a house. … The plan is that he [husband] will come back now for Christmas. Then after New Year’s he will leave again until Easter. Then during the summer he can start building the house. And if everything goes well, in fall he will go again. So the plan is to go for three times.
Lina further explains that the first two times of her husband working abroad is for saving up enough to build a house and the third one is for buying a new car. This example illustrates the presence of clearly demarcated time of leaving and coming back, which comes with the expectation of achieving a certain material goal. Of course, these “clear” time-frames and exact aims are malleable and subject to change, but what is essential is the process of planning.
Another component which crosscuts transnational family life is a clear distinction between away time and home time, i.e. the periods of being together and being separate. Both time and space then brakes into the work “there”, in Denmark, and (family) life “here”, in Lithuania.15 In turn, each time-space frame is
lived differently and comes with its separate set of practices. Experiencing Work in Denmark
Those who move to Denmark see going abroad solely in terms of work and Denmark is perceived primarily as a work place. Consequently, there is no attempt to build “life” somewhere else – while work is being done, “life” is put on pause. No actions are taken to get more familiar with or integrate into a new environment.16
Any free time, which is usually one day a week on Sundays, is spent simply by sleeping or socializing with other Lithuanian construction workers, who often share housing facilities. They sometimes go fishing, which is a common “male” practice in Lithuania, or organize gatherings among themselves, where alcohol becomes an integral part.
15 It is interesting to see that this dynamic resembles traditional occupations characterized by a highly gendered division of labour, such as deep-sea fishing and the military (Chandler, 1991), where the same away/home divide occurs as husbands are expected to be away for longer periods of time (Morgan, 2011a, p. 85).
16 It is important to keep in mind that a huge barrier in many cases is the non-existing or very poor foreign language skills, except Russian, which is of little help in a Scandinavian country.
14 The time goes slowly and there is a constant waiting of coming back. Husbands often mention “counting days” - crossing them one by one, until the day to go back home arrives. The everyday routine is described as highly monotonous. When asked how the day looks like, Rimas explains,
Everything is the same, the same routine. Sometimes you even mix, can’t remember what you did the day before yesterday. You wake up, everything is the same - wake up, breakfast, go to work, come back from work, same view from the window, clean up a little bit and go to sleep.
Another research participant Marius reiterates the point by saying that: “[r]hythm is so similar, all days are the same, all weeks are the same, and all months are the same. You really get tired of it. And of course you get grumpier and angrier, as everything is always the same and the same.” The “sameness” of days is what penetrates the living and working in Denmark, which goes in parallel with tiredness, irritability and anger. These emotions however seems to be rather suppressed, as the situation in which research participants find themselves is perceived temporary and it is a state of “waiting” which dominates. To capture the way of living through difficult periods of being away from home, one of the informants aptly uses the Lithuanian expression “laukiu sukandęs dantis” (engl. wait while biting on the teeth), which conveys the meaning of “waiting patiently but tensely”.
The transition point of leaving home and going to a foreign country is also accompanied by stress and tension. The peak emotional moment of leaving brings about the feeling of anxiety and tears for all members of the family, be it husband, wife and especially children. Marius openly talks about the last days before going to Denmark:
I had a feeling as if I did something bad. My whole body was shaking. Of course there are tears when I leave and there are tears of happiness when I come back. … But for example when I come back from Denmark to Lithuania, two three weeks pass and you have to go back. So those last two days before leaving, you are walking, like I don’t know, well you simply appear angry. And Kristina [wife] is then saying “what’s going on with you, it seems that you want to leave on purpose”, but they don’t understand that this anger comes from not wanting to leave, but you feel that you are forced to.
The revealed feelings of anger by Marius can be seen as an expression of the tension between not wanting to leave but feeling an obligation to do so. Leaving home, which is filled with stress, then stands in sharp contrast to the experience of coming back. The moment when one enters through the door and everyone is waiting and the children run towards the father is talked about as nearly euphoric.
Family Life in Lithuania
If Denmark is described only as a place where work occurs, going back to Lithuania for a visit is perceived as a space and time when “family” occurs. During the course of two weeks, families engage in doing as many things together as possible, which include trips, different forms of entertainment for children, purchasing household goods (typically, the wife would wait for her husband to come back to buy “bigger” things, such as washing
15 machine or car), etc. The time of being together flies and almost without noticing the moment of leaving comes again, which contrasts with the husbands’ experience of monotony and time passing slowly when being in Denmark.
However, the experience of life and its particular pace by women in Lithuania when their husbands are not present is rather different; the responsibilities that wives have to deal with take up all their time and energy. As Lina, the wife of Ramunas, who is raising two boys (5 and 8 y. o.), explains,
Actually I am very busy. I work at nights. And also during the days. We have a little sewing business with my cousin. So the workload is heavy and that constant running and children, there is simply no time to think or let yourself feel nostalgic or sad.
Further in the conversation Lina adds,
But the biggest support comes from children themselves, because you know that you cannot give up. There are moments when it is very difficult and everything, but the children are what keep you going, they are the ones that keep your spirit up. … Most importantly I am the mother of two little boys.
During the days Lina is working as a secretary in the transportation company and as a side job is also sewing theme costumes by hand (e.g. for Halloween and other theme parties). Yet taking care of children remains the most important task. Lina’s story exemplifies the situation in which the significance of gender roles becomes apparent. While a husband by moving away abroad, also moves (or to some extent is stripped away) from family responsibilities and takes up the predominant role of earning money, the core duty of a wife is raising children. It could be said that in the case of transnational families, where it is male who travels to work abroad, a heteronormative family model is strengthened - in other words, family members draw on the “traditional” roles of the man being a breadwinner and the woman a care-taker. As one of the wives in my research boldly put it, “my husband is a money-making machine”. The “temporary” situation of being a transnational family is then expressed by assigning the activity of money-making to a husband and the activity of care-taking to a wife.
However, as Lina’s situation reveals, in practice women are frequently left with a double burden of both taking care of children, including all other household responsibilities, as well as working full-time or part-time. It is what Hochschild (1989) calls “the second shift”, the situation in which women undertake both employment and domestic duties. It further relates to a “neo-traditional” family model, as defined by Moen and Sweet (2003), in which both spouses are participating in a labour market, as well as housework and childcare, yet the distribution of tasks in these areas remain uneven – men’s main contribution to the family consist of paid work in labour market, whereas women are primarily responsible for housework and children,
16 despite having a paid job. In the case of transnational families were women work, extra hours are added to the wives’ “second shift”, as men withdraw from their additional help at home.17
Yet again the situation is perceived as only temporary, even though this process of reaching out for the better future may be prolonged. The outlook of temporariness is adapted and expressed in future orientation, planning and specific goal driven attitude, and a clear divide between “work” and “(family) life”, which brings heteronormative family norms into the picture. Each time-space framework, i.e. Denmark and “being separate” vs. Lithuania and “being together”, comes with a particular set of practices and emotional experiences. These dynamics are further illuminated by long-distance communication practices, which mediates family relationships in the periods of separation.
Long-distance Communication and the Role of New Media
Among my research participants, the use and importance of communication technologies is undeniable and the constant communication via Skype, phone calls, messaging, among others is overwhelmingly present. Internet- and mobile phone-based platforms have produced a new communication environment, which can be called polymedia, a term introduced by Madianou and Miller (2012). More than just referring to various contemporary communication technologies, this notion suggests that “each individual medium is radically changed by the wider environment of polymedia, since it now exists in a state of contrast, but also synergy, with all others” (ibid., p. 125). Individuals are free to choose one medium to overcome the limitations of the other, which creates space to deal with long-distance relationships. The nature of this type of intense communication also reveals the importance of always being available and reachable, which then creates a sense of (virtual) presence and involvement.
Communication Practices
Almost all research participants were keeping in contact with each other every day, and the frequency varied from “half an hour a day or every-second day” to calling “five or even more times a day”. Usually Skype conversations with webcam would take place in the evening, when everyone is back from work. Some families would make their meals together while the webcam is turned on. As Lina remarks, “we come back from work and at around eight or nine we turn on Skype and then go around our business, we make food together, talk, eat together, and so on”. Setting the time for everyday communication brings about the dimension of repetition and regularity. The webcam would also be turned on during the bigger family gatherings or
17 The significant body of work on the topic of gender norms and family models in Lithuania is produced by Tereškinas (2010). The mixed method research on the way Lithuanian families justify the division of housework, revealed that even though most Lithuanian men and women believe they have egalitarian families, these ideals are contradicted by gender roles. After observing how household labour is carried out, the neo-traditional family model emerged as the most dominant one (ibid., p. 63). The same pattern can be recognized among the families I had a chance to research; however, the transnational aspect complicates matters even further. Yet, the cross-overs between transnational families, family models, gender roles and ideologies goes beyond the scope of this article.
17 celebration, e.g. birthday party, so the person who is not present can see what is happening, who comes to congratulate, etc. Another informant, Dalia, talks about the advantages brought by the emergence of smart-phones, which made communication processes even easier; Skype can be used on the phone, for example.
Now phone allows us to Skype any time, when walking on the street or while at work. It is easier now, as before the smartphones, we would only talk in the evenings, otherwise phone bills would skyrocket. And now we can talk constantly.
Regular phone calls and messages are mostly used to contact the other person during the day, during lunch hour, for instance, or send a brief text message just after waking up in the morning. Social networking sites and e-mail are also employed, mainly to exchange some practical information, which requires a more detailed description or to send pictures.
Involvement in Everyday Life
Usually the conversation revolves around what happened during the day, what is the plan for the next day, what are practical issues, among other topics. Constant communication allows them to be involved in everyday life. As Lina notes, “I could say that my husband is involved in our everyday life at about 90 percent, he knows everything about where we go and what we do or are planning to do.” What is interesting, however, is that this involvement in one’s everyday routine is asymmetrical; in other words, the conversation predominantly concerns family life in Lithuania rather than the everyday details of those who are away.
He [husband] is more connected to our Lithuanian life. He knows more about what is going on at home. And his life, well, he is always at work and at work or resting. (Dalia)
Or as one of the husbands put it himself,
They are not interested in what I am doing. Working, working, healthy and that’s enough. They, of course always ask how I am. I say fine and that’s ok. But I know everything what is going on at home. (Karolis)
This asymmetry in information flow and involvement between family members can again be explained by a clear divide between “family life” in Lithuania and “work” in Denmark. If we look at communication as a process of maintaining a sense of familyhood, then talking about what is going on with family members in Lithuania becomes a natural way of (re)creating family, whereas work and everyday happenings, while being abroad, steps out of the family zone and is perceived as less interesting. Telling about a long traffic jam when picking the son up from school to some extent becomes a way of re-living the reality of what family is, whereas discussing the peculiarities of house building is perceived irrelevant to the experience of family.
The communication pattern between different family members also varies. The intense communication can mostly be observed between husbands and wives, while children are frequently excluded or stand aside from this constant long-distance interaction. In most of the families, fathers know what is going on with children only through their wives. When a direct conversation between children and their father’s
18 takes place, usually it is short and sporadic. As Monika (25 y. o.), a daughter of Dalia introduced earlier as a local hospital administrator, whose husband is working in Denmark for over eight years, explains:
I don’t know, maybe it’s an instinct of a man to ask the wife how kids are doing and that’s it. With mom they would talk every day. And with us [children] it would be a very rare case. Sometimes for a few months there would be no “hi” no “goodbye” from him.
This difference in intensity between husbands’ communication with their wives and their kids points again to the fact that the care-taking role of children is delegated to the women in the family and that intense fathering through distance is not anticipated or expected. However, in some of the cases fathers attempted to maintain contact directly with children. For instance, in one family, the father seriously took up the role of following the children’s school matters. He would follow their achievements at school through the online system, in which he is able to see all their grades and comments left by teachers. If children performed well in school, he promised to bring them presents as a reward for their hard work. However, even in this case, the husband himself admitted that “care-taking responsibilities are left on my wife’s shoulders” (Karolis).
Changing Experience of Long-Distance Communication
The use of new media in a long-distance communication can be seen as a dynamic experience, which requires time to get used to. Research participants explain that, at the beginning, the type of communication was more formal, less elaborate, and shorter, only concerning very practical matters. However, after some time they got used to it and it became more natural, getting closer to real life conversations:
Of course, at the beginning it was weird. I would get somehow lost. I would try to express myself but couldn’t... Would just say things that I have to say and then bye. But now it’s different. It seems like a normal thing. (Marius)
However, it is not simply that one goes through the process of domestification, after which the use of ICT becomes unproblematic. The very experience and the way it is perceived can change too. For example, after using a certain medium, such as Skype, for longer periods of time, the feeling of frustration may be evoked. As Jonas explains,
You stay for one week, for one month, and then I start getting nervous. It seems it is not enough to chat on Skype anymore. First month it is normal but then you get tired of it, because you simply have nothing left to say. I can see how kids are playing and running around and I want to play with them. I am sitting, looking at the screen and getting angry. … Do you think kids are interested in Skype? “Hello, hello”, and they rush to play or fight or whatever, and I also want to go with them.
After some time, the communication using Skype alters from being a normal and integral element of keeping family relationships to something that frustrates. Having it as the only way of accessing family life is no longer enough and the extent to which it can accommodate family making becomes limited. As much as long-distance communication can get closer to natural conversations and interactions, the physical dimension is always
19 missed – “you cannot touch the other person” or “cuddle” and even the talk itself is experienced differently when the person is close. Thus, communication through Skype or phone-calls is mostly perceived as a way to exchange information. As Laura notes,
I don’t know how to communicate on Skype, or on the phone, how to say I love you on the phone for instance, or that I miss you. It’s so artificial for me. I just can’t, I don’t know how to… And when I hear through Skype that he [husband] loves me I just don‘t feel it, zero emotions. I get a feeling that a button was pressed, a phrase came out and that‘s it. But then when he comes back, and in reality you see his actions, how he is trying, then you appreciate.
For Laura, conveying the emotion and really “feeling” it through the means of new media seems hard to achieve. Another research participant, Karolis (38 y. o.), when asked about the way he feels when communicating through Skype with his wife, gives a short but vivid answer: “Have you ever tried licking honey through glass?” Communication through technology is perceived as considerably lacking the quality of physical co-presence and thus as not able to replace real life interaction.
The Role of New Media
The emergence of new media is now widely celebrated to revolutionize the way transnational families are able to maintain long-distance relationships. For instance, Madianou and Miller (2012), in their recent book “Migration and New Media: Transnational families and Polymedia”, argue that, as the use of different communication technologies “becomes more present and taken for granted, the range of encounters, including very direct webcam conversation, may approach the nuance of traditional co-presence in which the ‘actual person’ is confronted more directly” (ibid., p. 148). The theory of polymedia is based on Madianou’s long-term ethnographic engagement with Filipina transnational mothers and their left behind children, who do not see each other for a long periods of time (maximum period being 13 years), and shows how the use of a wide range of information and communication technologies (ICTs) allows mothers to perform intense mothering and micromanage their families through distance. However, among my research participants, the extent to which new media replaces and creates a situation of co-presence can be highly questioned. Transnational families that I engaged with constantly circulate between being separate and being together. This creates the situation in which particular importance is placed on the periods of unification, which are always compared to long-distance communication, perceived as only temporary. Face-to-face interaction then stands in sharp contrast with communication through technologies, the limitations of which are well articulated and emphasized. A similar conclusion is made by Svasek (2008, p. 219) who notes that interacting “emotionally within the same time/space frame, allows for a unique form of intimacy which is irreplaceable by communication at a distance”. ICT allows for the virtual interactions, which is a crucial component of the way family is lived through the periods of separation. However, the importance and role of new media can be downplayed even further by those who perceive it as only temporary and constantly compare it (and have
20 opportunity to do so) with the embodied co-presence. Thus, the experience of ICT can be seen as contingent upon the expectations of being physically together in the near future.
Conclusion
In the attempt to answer the question of how Lithuanian transnational families are being “done”, I show that it is closely related to the circular nature of migration, in which family members constantly change between periods of physical presence and separation. This type of mobility and the movement forwards and backwards across countries, made possible due to the absence of borders and legal restrictions, characterizes the broader migration flow from East and Central to West Europe, as well as a more specific migration flow from the Baltic to the Nordic region. By “working abroad”, the economic advantages are exploited; however, family life stays rooted in the sending country. The experience of transnational family living is accompanied by a strong sense of temporariness as separation is expected to be over soon. Instead of being perceived as a long-term process, it is rather seen as a combination of multiple short-term periods. This developed sense of temporariness, which often tends to last, and the fact that emphasis is put on the periods of being together, relates to the prevalent norm of family proximity – the understanding of family as “having to be together”. It contradicts with migration as a strategy to secure a better economic condition for the family, which can also be seen as a common practice due to the widespread and intensified migration in Lithuania. The “normality” of working abroad but the “necessity” of being co-present is then expressed in the constant coming back. However, these conflicting sets of rules come with the emotional struggle of changing states of being separate and being together.
The examination of how lasting temporariness is felt and practiced brings the array of other categories and dimensions into picture. The outlook of temporariness is reflected in the future orientation, constant planning and a goal driven attitude. Most importantly, a clear divide emerges between the zone of “work” in Denmark versus the zone of “(family) life” in Lithuania. The life/work separation makes heteronormative family norms explicit. The way transnational family is then practiced is by clearly assigning a “breadwinner” role to the husband, who sees his life in the other country solely in terms of work and withdraws from the intense fathering through distance, while the wife takes the predominant role of the “care-taker”. Raising children as well as housework becomes her main responsibility. However, females often remain active in the labour market as well, which leaves them with a double burden of both employment and domestic duties, referred to as a “second shift” (Hochschild, 1989). In the case of female migration, the traditional family model and gender norms are likely to be challenged, which became the major focus of many migration studies on transnational families that explore the feminization of migration (see e.g. Hondagneu-Sotelo & Avila, 1997). However, in the case of male migration just the opposite seems to be the case; the heteronormative family model remains a prevalent phenomenon and can further be strengthened through transnational mobilities.
21 Another core aspect of transnational family living is an intense and constant communication through new media, such as Skype and phone calls, which allows family members to be highly involved in everyday life and thus mediates transnational family relationships. Even though ICT plays an important role in the everyday life of transnational families, it does not replace physical co-presence. What constitutes the experience of being a family are the periods (however short) of being all together. The way long-distance communication is experienced again boils down to the sense of “temporariness”, i.e. waiting for the moments of “being together” and emphasizing the limitations of communication using technologies. Communication via Skype or phone calls is then immediately contrasted with the periods when another person is physically present, and limitations of long-distance communication in comparison with face-to-face interaction are highly emphasized. Even though the role of new media technologies has been widely celebrated in being able to create the alternative co-presence between family members across distance (see e.g. Madianou & Miller, 2012), one should be careful to not overemphasize the power of new media in maintaining “familyhood”. Perhaps communication technologies are more relied on in the cases of prolonged periods of separation, where the micro-management of family through distance is an integral part. In the case of temporary migration, even though the use of ICT is almost taken for granted, its limitations are well-articulated.
It is worth keeping in mind that the way communication between family members takes place, family roles are divided, and the separation in general is experienced, varies according to the set of persons within a particular family and the life course. The situation I am describing mainly refers to the nuclear families with children that are underage, however it does not exhaust the possibilities. Distance is likely to be perceived and felt differently at different life stages. In the case of grown-up children and parent(s) living across different countries, the situation may be perceived as more natural and potentially long-lasting. Also, I did not contextualize the particular migration flow between Lithuania and Denmark that comes with the specific set of institutional arrangements and structural conditions, in which these transnational families are embedded.18
However, at the expense of a more macro institutional perspective, I took a lens of everyday life of transnational families, zooming in on family practices that go hand in hand with emotional dynamics.
By approaching different dimensions of family practices through the angle of emotions, I was able to scrutinize contradictions and reveal ambiguities and asymmetries, as well as support and coping mechanisms involved in “doing” transnational family. I did not however attempt to disentangle the complexity of emotion per se or come up with the definite answer to what emotions are. Instead, emotions were used as a sensor which pointed to what is important and opened up the possibility of talking about different aspects of transnational family living. To look through the lens of emotions is to analyze one’s relation, experience and
18 For example, various recruitment and temporary staffing agencies play a crucial role in bringing migrant workers to the Nordic countries, which facilitate and promote specific kinds of mobilities. For the close examination of working conditions and recruitment practices of labour migrants from Central and Eastern Europe in the Nordic countries, see Friberg & Eldring (2013).
