Dr. Cati Coe will undertake research on the impact of transnational migration on family ideologies and practices in Ghana. Like parents in many transnational families, many migrant parents from Ghana rely on caregiving from extended family members in the country of origin to train and raise their children, thus facilitating the parents'' international migration. The project focuses particularly on the relationship between the arrangements for the raising and training of children and patterns of international and internal migration, how those patterns have changed over time, and the rights, meanings, and responsibilities attributed to those arrangements.
The researcher will conduct a household survey in one small town in southern Ghana to explore household composition, the migration of family members, and children''s circulation between households. Drawing from members of those same surveyed households, she and her collaborators will conduct focus group discussions among children and interview cohorts of caregivers and transnational migrant parents. These new quantitative and qualitative data will supplement data the researcher already has collected, which include interviews with migrant parents, children, and caregivers, as well as archival research on court cases involving children.
Other researchers who have studied families and transnational migration have assumed that these family arrangements are new. Consequently, they have focused on the stresses and strains in family life that emerge as a result, particularly when women migrate. They have argued that new family arrangements that accompany women''s labor migration may not match existing cultural norms for gender roles and parenting, generating both conflict in families and opportunities for new notions and practices to emerge. In highlighting the discontinuities generated by international migration, previous research has not been sensitive to the historical and contemporary experiences of internal and regional migration.
Dr. Coe, however, has discovered that labor migration is an old practice in Ghana and there are longstanding, traditional modes for managing childcare while parents are absent. Thus, Dr. Coe''s research fills an important gap in the literature on transnational families and globalization. Her findings will be significant for developing better social science theory about the local effects of globalization. Her research also will contribute to developing better social policy for helping transnational migrants and their families.
