Üle piiride liikuvad pered: lood mobiilsusest ja paigal püsimisest

• Published in: Mäetagused
• Main Author: Pihla Maria Siim
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: Estonian
• Published: Eesti Kirjandusmuuseum 2014
• Subjects: border; family; migration; storytelling; transnationality; Ethnology. Social and cultural anthropology; GN301-674; karelia*
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.7592/MT2014.56.siim; https://doaj.org/article/aa475cdb472a44da8bff35cefdcc8323

In the research into migration, push and pull factors have for a long time been in the foreground, in addition to integration and the acculturation of mobile people settling in receiving countries. The starting point for integration-centred research has been the fact that the new country of residence is, or should be, also a new home country for the migrants. In this context, the transnational networks of migrants have not received enough attention, multi-locality being regarded rather as an exception. However, during the last two decades researchers have started to stress the parallel relations that people have to two or more states, meaning that it is possible even to talk about a transnational turn in the interdisciplinary field of migration studies. Drawing on fieldwork material, this article explores the experiences of multi-local families, whose members live some or most of the time separated from each other, in the transnational social space in an Estonian–Finnish–northwest-Russian context. The main research material consists of forty interviews the author has made between the years 2001 and 2004. Interviewees are former Soviet immigrants living in Finland, on the one hand, and their family members living in the country of origin (Russian Karelia and Estonia), on the other. By using narrative research methods, the author explores narratives of migration and border crossing – the possibilities and difficulties related to going beyond them. The aim has been to study transnational family life and narrating mobility from the perspective of different family members, taking into account the experiences of relatives who stay behind as well as those of children, in addition to adult migrants. The author is especially interested in the changes in family (life) caused by migration and the role of family storytelling in coping with these challenges. Mobility is narrated differently depending on the situation and the position of the narrator. Even during the same interview the motivations for relocation are described ...