Processi di cura nelle famiglie transnazionali: le “catene globali”

Abstract

In the variety of emerging forms of global stratification of reproductive work, the idea that migrant women cannot care for their children and elderly parents from afar has placed the perspective of “global care chains” in the foreground, on the assumption that “care” is not only identifiable with the strictly physical one. Instead, it is an approach to transnational family solidarity in terms of “circulation of care” (Merla, 2014, passim, Author’s transl.); an approach based on a multidimensional vision of care that transcends the personal care provided to a family member in need, taking as a unit of analysis the entire family network, thus demonstrating the multiplicity of actors and roles that each individual in the family assumes over time for the maintenance of transnational family solidarity. This view also recognises other important factors, such as the history of intra-family relations, which influence all dynamics involved, and which we will deepen through an examination of the main research on this subject.