Reciprocity in global social protection: providing care for migrants’ children
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Date
2017
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Abstract
Migration research tends to conceptualize migrants as providers of social
protection for people back home. Yet the care conducted within transnational
families and the way it is organized is an integral part of a global social
protection system which is based on reciprocity between migrants and their
families in their home countries. This system relies on the work of people
back home just as much as on the remittances of migrants overseas. Drawing
on ethnographic data from 34 caregivers, we provide a detailed description
of the work conducted by people in Ghana to care for migrants’ children
and analyze what caregivers do to make this work possible. We find that
caregivers have small networks of support they can rely on and identify the
strategies they develop when remittances are not forthcoming or enough
to cater for the material needs of migrants’ children.
Description
Keywords
transnational care, migration, caregivers, global social protection, reciprocal relations, Ghana
Citation
Ernestina Dankyi, Valentina Mazzucato & Takyiwaa Manuh (2017) Reciprocity in global social protection: providing care for migrants’ children, Oxford Development Studies, 45:1, 80-95, DOI: 10.1080/13600818.2015.1124078