Asia-Europe intimate links: Family migrants, binational couples and mixed-parentage children

Abstract

The social unit of the family has been one of the principal channels and drivers of contemporary migration. The family-shaped movement of people is known in the literature as “family-related migration” (Kofman, 2004), and more recently as “family migration” (Cooke, 2008)—“migration events that are made within the context of a family” and/or “with respect to events in the lives of distant, extended family members” (Cooke, 2008: 260). This phenomenon includes family formation, family reunification, accompanying family and international adoption (Migration Data Portal, 2020). It takes place alongside or overlaps with other migratory movements such as labor, student, climate-/war-induced and sexual migrations. Among the migration corridors