Caring in Transnational Networks

Abstract

This chapter presents the innovative strategies that the participants used in caring for their families and friends amid tensions they experienced with their paid care and its effects on their sense of belonging and identity. While Chapter 5 discussed the problems that these women experienced in developing their careers, this chapter gives a closer glimpse of their worlds apart from their workplaces and outside of England. For this, I analysed a subset of 22 participants in Strands 1 and 2 who engaged in in-depth interviews up to four times each between 2007 and 2009.¹ These interviews, staggered over time, and covering many issues surrounding technology and media uses as well as social support exchanges, enabled me to gauge the function of care in the participants’ transnational relationships—also referred to as, transnational caregiving (Baldassar, 2007a, p. 387), which includes childcare, eldercare, and the maintenance of family and friendship ties.