Transnational families in Africa: Migrants and the role of information communication technologies
Author Identifier (ORCID)
Loretta Baldassar: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6246-4773
Abstract
This is the first book to capture the poignant stories of transnational African families and their use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in mediating their experiences of migration and caring across distance. Transnational Families in Africa analyses the highs and lows of family separation as a result of migration in three contexts: migration within South Africa from rural to urban areas; migration from other African countries into South Africa; and middle-class South Africans emigrating to non-African countries.The book foregrounds the importance of kinship and support from extended family as well as both the responsibilities migatory family members feel and the experience of loss by those left behind.Across the diverse circumstances explored in the book are similarities in migrants’ strategies for keeping in touch, but also large differences in relation to access to ICTs and ease-of-use that highlight the digital divide and generational gaps. As elsewhere in the world, and in spite of the varied experiences in these kinship circles, the phenomenon that is the transnational family is showing no signs of receding. This book provides a groundbreaking contribution to global debates on migration from the Global South.
Document Type
Book
Date of Publication
7-17-2025
Publication Title
Transnational Families in Africa: Migrants and the Role of Information Communication Technologies
Publisher
Wits University Press
School
School of Arts and Humanities
RAS ID
82506
Copyright
subscription content
Comments
Marchetti-Mercer, M. C., Swartz, L., & Baldassar, L. (Eds.). (2023). Transnational families in Africa: Migrants and the role of information communication technologies. Wits University Press. https://doi.org/10.18772/22023128646