Transnational Families

Contemporary Western society is changing and, controversially, migration is often flagged up as one of the reasons why. The nature of population change challenges the conventional understandings of family forms and networks whilst multiculturalism poses challenges to our understanding of social change, families and social capital.

This innovative book provides an overview of the emergence of new understandings of ethnicities, identities and family forms across a number of ethnic groups, family types, and national boundaries. Based on new empirical data from fairly distinct sets of transnational family networks in minority communities with a substantial presence in the United Kingdom – principally, Caribbean and Italian, but also drawing on others such as Indian – it examines their lived experiences and uses the concept of social capital to explore how these families manage to maintain close and meaningful links.

Transnational Families discusses, explains and illustrates the substantial problems and issues confronted by communities and families, academics and policy-makers/implementers, and non-governmental organisations within a transnational world. It will be of interest to students and scholars of migration, transnationalism, families and globalisation.

Harry Goulbourne is Professor of Sociology at London South Bank University, UK. Tracey Reynolds is Senior Research Fellow in the Families & Social Capital Research Group at London South Bank University, UK. John Solomos is Professor of Sociology at City University, UK. Elisabetta Zontini is Lecturer in Sociology at Nottingham University, UK.