Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Click here to sign up for SAGE Journal Email Alerts today!

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Gender, Technology and Development
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Muller, P.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Articles

Connections and Disconnections

How Afghan Refugees in the Netherlands Maintain Transnational Family Relations

Paulien Muller

Paulien Muller, Netherlands Institute of Human Rights, Utrecht University, Drift 15, 3512 BR Utrecht, The Netherlands. Email: P.H.A.M.Muller{at}uu.nl

This article explores how Afghan refugees in the Netherlands maintained relations with family members who stayed behind in Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan. These transnational relations are characterized not only by a geographical distance but also by an economic, legal and cultural distance and by fundamental differences in terms of safety and security. Embedded in a world of reciprocity, remittances to stay-behinds were one visible, unidirectional feature interacting with three other features of support (bringing stay-behinds to the West, keeping in touch, and returning). The article demonstrates that connection and disconnection can be seen as different moments in a continuum with different mechanisms for relationship maintenance. Remittances not only symbolize connection to the country of origin; in cases of limited means in which sending money was prioritized over other forms of practical, social and cultural support, they could also have a disconnecting impact on transnational relations as well. In these relations, tension arising from the transformation of gender identity was observed in several cases.

Gender, Technology and Development, Vol. 12, No. 3, 389-411 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/097185240901200306
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?