Abstract
This article considers transnational kin work in support of parents separated from their children by a nation state border. Three parents who have been involved in transnational child custody and access disputes participated in the research: a mother in Egypt, a father in Morocco and a mother in The Netherlands. Each of these parents has had to deal with competing legal rules and incompatible popular discourses in unfamiliar legal, diplomatic and bureaucratic environments. Their accounts of the practical and emotional assistance they have received from their families during these crises add to existing work on transnational kin work. Successful transfers of capital from kin firstly enables separated parents to engage in the dispute. Kin work in the form of capital transfers may ultimately also establish some parents’ independence from family support, leading to recognition of their symbolic status in the transnational dispute and giving them a degree of ‘world making’ power.
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Notes
- 1.
This is an experience familiar to anthropologists conducting fieldwork.
- 2.
The interviews were conducted in Arabic, Dutch and English, sometimes in combination during the same interview. I have translated the Arabic and Dutch into English, and have left the phrases or words in English unaltered. All the names have been changed.
- 3.
Egyptian procedure allows the registration of children born abroad outside of a state recognized marriage.
- 4.
At the time of this stage of Amal’s dispute, mothers retained the right to legal custody over girls until they were 12 and boys until they were 10, although a judge could extend this to until girls married or boys reached the age of 15. Law 4 (2005) raised the age to which divorced mothers have legal custody over their children to 15 for both girls and boys.
- 5.
Article 65 of Law No.1 of 2000 states that court rulings in favour of the handing over of a young child, or allowing contact with the child, are enforceable with the full force of law.
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Carlisle, J. (2014). “That Hurt Me, That Hurt My Family”: The Role of Migrants’ Families During Transnational Parental Child Custody Disputes in Egypt. In: Geisen, T., Studer, T., Yildiz, E. (eds) Migration, Familie und Gesellschaft. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-531-94126-4_15
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