Maria Vivas Romero

Combining transnational and intersectional approaches to immigrants' social protection: The case of Andean families' access to health

Immigrants and family members in the home and host societies experience inequalities in access to social protection. Focusing on healthcare, we demonstrate that immigrant families today respond to healthcare needs of family members here and there through four cross-border strategies. We show that immigrants select and articulate these different strategies to assemble transnational health care arrangements. Using an intersectional approach, we argue that heterogeneity markers such as gender, race, class, and levels of transnational engagement determine the choice between different types of arrangements. We support our argument with ethnographic data collected with 48 members of 10 Andean transnational family members during fieldwork in Belgium, Colombia, and Peru.

More than just ‘friends’? Locating migrant domestic workers’ transnational Voluntary Kin relationships

The author explores the practices through which migrant domestic workers established Transnational Voluntary Kin relations with individuals who are non-blood or law-related. Transnational Voluntary...ABSTRACT The author explores the practices through which migrant domestic workers established Transnational Voluntary Kin relations with individuals who are non-blood or law-related. Transnational Voluntary Kin are intimate relationships, which alleviate migrants’ reproductive needs by replacing, overlapping or complementing traditional family support. Drawing from Braithwaite, Bach, Baxter, Hosek, & Wolf [(2010). Constructing family: A typology of Voluntary Kin. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 27(3), 388–407] four relationships are explored. Firstly, there are ‘More than family’ Kin that replace the care of absent or dead family members. Secondly, there are ‘Just like Family’ Kin that replace the care of physically proximate relatives unable to perform their roles. Thirdly, there are ‘Whenever needed it’ Kin that replace or overlap traditional kin aid in particular situations. Fourthly, there are ‘In law or extended’ Kin constructed through the marriage of traditional kin. Data are drawn from a multi-sited ethnography with Peruvian-Colombian migrant domestic workers and their Transnational Voluntary or Traditional kin. The analysis contributes both to the constructivist sociology of the family and transnational family studies where these relationships remain underexplored.