1st Edition
Mixed Families in a Transnational World
Offering a transnational perspective on the processes of identity transmission and identity construction of mixed families in various parts of the world, this book provides an overview of how local, national, global contexts and inter-group relations structure the development of specific forms of belonging and identification.
Featuring nine rich ethnographic studies situated in geographic areas less covered by scholarship on mixed families such as Québec, Morocco, Italy, France, Switzerland, Belgium, the Philippines, Thailand and Israel, the book’s contributions reveal how families’ everyday lives are shaped by historical and sociopolitical contexts, as well as by transnational dynamics and mobility trajectories. The studies illustrate the context-specific realities that shape social definitions of mixedness—whether religious, national, cultural, ethnic or racial—at local and transnational levels.
The articulation of local and transnational perspectives on mixed families will be of interest to students and scholars of migration, transnationalism, families, ethnicity, race and racism in the social sciences (anthropology, sociology, history, social work, international relations and global studies). The book will also be of interest to policymakers, as well as activists and practitioners working in organizations offering services to mixed individuals, migrants, and their families.
Foreword — The Overriding Value of Mixedness: Questioning the Mixed Couple Category in France
Gabrielle Varro
Introduction — Beyond Borders: The Everyday Life of Transnational Mixed Families
Josiane Le Gall, Catherine Therrien and Karine Geoffrion
Part I: Transnational Relatedness: Socialization and Belonging Through and Beyond Borders
1. Relational Transnationalism of Filipino/Thai-Belgian Youths in Belgium: Mothers, Memories, Emotions and Social Entities
Asuncion Fresnoza-Flot
2. Identity Transmission in a (Trans)national Context: A Comparison between Parents in Mixed Couples in Quebec and Morocco
Catherine Therrien and Josiane Le Gall
3. Canadian Mothers, Transnational Bridges: Transmitting Embodied Connections to the Global South to ‘Mixed’ Children in Canada
Karine Geoffrion
4. Narratives of Belonging in Transnational Contexts: The Multidimensional Experience of Mixedness
Gwendolyn Gilliéron
Part II: (In)visible Affiliations and Racialization Processes in Tensed (Trans)national Group Relations
5. Single, Dual, Beyond: Ethnic, Racial and Religious Self-identification among Mixed Individuals Raised in Christian-Muslim Families in Italy
Francesco Cerchiaro
6. Racial Socialisation and Negotiation of Family Mixedness among White Parents of Internationally Adoptive Children in France
Solène Brun
7. Living in a Conflictual Transnational Space: French-Algerian Daily Lives in the Midst of Intergroup Tensions
Anne Unterreiner
8. ‘There’s no such Thing as a Dragon!’: Evading the Mixed Origin in Jewish Mixed Families’ Identity Discourse in Israel
Ayala Keissar-Sugarman
9. Perceptions of Racial Discrimination and Parenting Reactions: The case of Mixed Sub-Saharan African-Italian Families in Northern Italy
Claire Lajus, Anne-Gaëlle Picart and Geneviève Bergonnier-Dupuy
Biography
Josiane Le Gall is an Adjunct professor of anthropology at Université de Montréal and researcher at the Centre intégré universitaire de santé et de services sociaux (CIUSSS) du Centre-Ouest-de-l’Île-de-Montréal. Her research areas include migration and family, especially as related to mixedness, transnationalism, identity, transmission, religion, and care. Her current research projects focus on the identity construction process of mixed individuals in Québec and on the use of health and social services by immigrant men in Québec. She is also co-conducting ethnographic projects on ‘good death’, dying and grief as experienced by migrants and minorities in Montreal.
Catherine Therrien is a Canadian anthropologist living in Morocco. She is an Adjunct Faculty at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane. Her research interests focus on identity, mixedness, family, migration, and transnationalism. She currently conducts a research on the identity of mixed children in Morocco and one on the narratives of "illegalised" Sub-Saharan migrants. Author of the recent books ‘Celui qui échoue devient sorcier. Récit d’un migrant camerounais parti d’Afrique et arrivé… en Afrique’ (PUL, 2019) she has also co-edited various collective books and special issues of scholarly journals, the last of which is on mixed Muslim/non-Muslim families (Social Compass, forthcoming).
Karine Geoffrion is a professor of anthropology at Université Laval, Canada. Her research interests include mobility, transnational intimacies, family migration, romantic love, mixed identities, and gender diversity in West Africa. Her main research examines the transnational relationship of ‘North-South’ couples and Canadian women’s experience of the spousal reunification process in Canada. A recent project in collaboration with colleagues from Ghana explores issues of identity and belonging for mixed-race Ghanaians. Karine has recently coedited a themed issue on immigration bureaucracies in the journal Anthropologica (2021).
