Adjunct Principal Research Fellow

This paper is an ethnographic exploration of a seldom-discussed 'micro' dimension of transnational studies, the practices of long-distance family relations and aged care. The importance of time as a key variable in transnational research is demonstrated through comparisons of the care exchanges of three cohorts of Italian migrants in Australia and their kin in Italy. A focus on 'transnationalism from below', the more quotidian and domestic features of transmigrant experience, highlights the importance of considering the role of homeland kin and communities in discussions of migration. The analysis of transnational care-giving practices illustrates that migrancy is sometimes triggered by the need to give or receive care rather than the more commonly assumed 'rational' economic motivations. Transnational lives are thus shaped by the 'economies of kinship', which develop across changing state ('macro'), community ('meso') and family migration ('micro') histories, including, in particular, culturally constructed notions of 'ideal' family relations and obligations, as well as notions of 'successful' migration and 'licence to leave'.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to assess the relationship between background and sociodemographic variables, attitudes toward controversial aspects of human sexuality and sex knowledge among medical and nursing students.

Method: The study design was a questionnaire-based survey of medical and nursing students in Western Australia. Participants were first-through fifth-year medical students at the University of Western Australia and first-through third-year undergraduate nursing students at Edith Cowan University. Outcome measures were students' attitudes toward controversial aspects of human sexuality expressed on a five-point Likert scale and a modified version of the Kinsey Institute/Roper Organization National Sex Knowledge Test.

Results: A significant relationship was found between certain background and sociodemographic variables, sexual attitudes and sex knowledge. The background variable most strongly related to both attitudes and knowledge was frequency of attendance at religious services of any religious denomination during the past month, with those attending three or more times more likely to express negative attitudes and have lower sex knowledge scores. Lower sex knowledge was related to negative attitudes toward gay/lesbian/bisexual behaviour, masturbation, premarital sex and contraception. Other important background and sociodemographic variables related to negative attitudes were: never having experienced sexual intercourse; right-wing political orientation; lower family income; gender and ethnicity.

Conclusions: Negative attitudes toward controversial aspects of human sexuality and lower sex knowledge scores among medical and nursing students can be predicted on the basis of background and sociodemographic variables. Education aimed at increasing sex knowledge and modifying negative attitudes may increase students' ability to function more effectively as sexual history takers and sex counsellors.



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Using an ethnographic account of weddings and network activities among Italo-Australian youth in Perth, and, in particular, a symbolic analysis of garters and bouquets, this paper explores the intersections of ethnicity, gender and sexuality, and reviews social scientific theories of ethnic identity and cultural transmission. By investigating the double standard-where men are free to be sexually active and women are not-it confronts some of the stereotypes about 'second generation Australians' and 'culture clash', female oppression and the control of sexuality. Of particular concern is the way that some Italo-Australian women perceive sexual freedom in Australian society. The paper argues that the moral community represented by the youth network and, in particular, the challenges posed by it to the traditional model of female honour, allow for significant generational changes in the construction of ethnic identity. By analysing how identities are constructed and articulated across difference, and how 'this kind of relativising' is 'embodied in the habitus [cf. Bourdieu 1977] of the second generation' (Bottomley 1992a: 132), the paper explodes homogeneous conceptions of what is Italian, and ltalo-Australian culture.

This article is an ethnographic analysis of transnational family links between adult migrant children living in Australia and their kin in Italy, from the 1950s to the present. A key focus of the article is the persistence of bonds of emotion across distance. Drawing on Finch and Mason's research on caregiving relationships and Hochschild's work on emotional labour, it explores both the positive experiences as well as the tensions associated with the transnational exchange of moral and emotional support. The findings confirm the perseverance of bonds of emotion across distance and thus challenge arguments about the declining bonds within translocal families as a result of globalising processes. The role that new communication technologies play in sustaining these bonds is offered as a possible explanation to account for the apparent increase in the frequency of transnational emotional interaction over time. The article also calls for further work on the influence of physical co-presence or absence on emotional interaction over distance.

The aim of this chapter is to explore the impact of distance on the experiences of migrants living in Australia who care for ageing, disabled parents in their home countries in Europe. The specific questions we address include: Do they have the capacity and the desire to contribute to the practical, emotional and personal care of their elderly parents back home? Are they in any way able to assist primary care givers, such as their siblings, who have remained in the home country? What role do their families play in facilitating the provision of care across distance? How do cultural differences in expectations of care and notions of independence influence the delivery of distant care? What are the structural constraints that shape the forms of this type of care-giving?

In this paper I explore the emotions of “missing” and “longing” as integral (though not essential) features of the kin-work (di Leonardo) and emotional labour (Hochschild) needed to maintain transnational family relationships. I argue that these emotions manifest in at least four key ways: discursively (through words), physically (through the body) as well as through actions (practice) and imagination (ideas). Hence, I consider emotions through both of the dominant perspectives in theories of emotion - constructionism (with its emphasis on discourse) and embodiment (with its emphasis on sensory experience). Drawing on a sample of Italian migrants living in Australia and their ageing parents living in Italy, I argue that the emotions of missing and longing motivate kin to construct four types of shared (co)presence - virtual, proxy, physical and imagined - which reinforce the sense of family closeness that characterises Italian conceptions of health and well-being.

This paper explores the construction of Australian citizenship, in particular contestations over membership in the community, through the interactions between two groups of people who live and work in a regional town in Australia: volunteer English language tutors and Afghan Hazara refugees who were granted temporary protection visas (TPVs). The paper examines the power relations which operate between the two groups and other relevant institutions. Of particular interest is the way the tutors and other groups tend to infantalise the Hazara through their efforts to 'protect' them and the way the Hazara in turn attempt to deal with and resist this treatment. In contrast to the mostly negative media images of Afghan refugees in the Australian media, the English language tutors construct and represent the Hazara using a discourse of citizenship, couched in terms of their membership in and economic contribution to the community. This membership is contested by certain groups when the Hazara are seen as not being adequately grateful for the help given to them by the community.

Provisioning for basic human needs is done in three main kind of institutions: the familial household; the commercial enterprise selling goods and services; the institutions of the Welfare State that provide education, medical care and other goods and personal services. The purpose of this book is to study the interplay of these institutions and their impact on well-being, and to analyze key policies and measures that have been implemented in European countries.

In this paper I apply the model of transnational caregiving developed by Baldassar, Baldock & Wilding (2006) to two sets of recent immigrant families in Australia: Italian professional migrants and Afghan refugees. I begin with a brief representative case study from each sample before comparing the practices of transnational caregiving of each group by focusing on the five types of care identified by Finch (1989). While they arrived in Australia during the same time-period, these two sets of recent immigrant families differ significantly in their capacity, obligation and commitment to exchange care across distance. Somewhat ironically, although the relationships between these migrants and their homeland-based kin are clearly transnational, in that they take place across significant distances as well as nation state borders, it is the ‘localised’ and ‘localising’ aspects of these relationships that impact most on transnational caregiving processes. In other words, despite the transnational character of their relationships, migrants and their homeland-based family members are located in particular places at particular times and their caregiving practices are variously affected by this ‘territorialisation’.

This chapter explores some of the transnational dimensions of debates within and about families, in particular the way kin who are separated by distance and national borders construct and negotiate cultural notions of obligation about aged care. I argue that debates about migration and caregiving concerning transnational families, both internal (at the micro level of everyday practice) and external (at the generally more meso and macro levels of policy and service provision), must be understood not as an attribute of individuals or families alone, but as a function of relationships between agents and social institutions within and across both home and host settings. In other words, a focus on transnational caregiving shifts attention from the behaviour of individual agents to the pattern of relations between agents, social units and institutions. In this way, internal debates concerning migration and care within the transnational domestic sphere (Gardner & Grillo 2002) provide a link between micro, meso and macro levels of analysis locating the practices of individuals and families in the context of local and transnational communities and states.

Pour la plupart, les relations d’aide intergénérationnelle transnationale ont été centrées sur la prise en nourrice et la garde d’enfants. En revanche, le présent article s’intéresse à l’échange d’aide transnationale entre des immigrés établis en Australie et leurs parents vieillissants « restés au pays », ce qui est en contradiction avec l’idée que l’aide ne peut s’opérer que dans un contexte de proximité physique. Le modèle d’aide transnationale de Baldassar, Baldock et Wilding (2007) est appliqué à deux groupes de familles récemment immigrées en Australie: des immigrés italiens qualifiés et des réfugiés humanitaires afghans, dont plusieurs sont aussi des cols blancs. Bien que les deux groupes d’immigrés soient arrivés en Australie depuis 1980, munis de diplômes professionnels, leurs familles diffèrent sensiblement pour ce qui est de leur capacité, leur obligation et leurs engagements à échanger de l’aide à distance. Dans ce contexte, le moment de l’arrivée et les qualifications professionnelles sont moins pertinents que les autres facteurs qui nuisent aux pratiques et procédés d’aide transnationale. Parmi les facteurs particulièrement importants, notons les conditions économiques et sociales des familles dans le pays d’origine; les trajectoires d’établissement et d’intégration des immigrés dans leur pays d’accueil ainsi que la disponibilité des services de bien-être et des infrastructures de communications dans chaque pays.

A moving ethnographic account of the transnational caregiving experiences and practices of migrants and refugees who live in Australia, with their parents in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and New Zealand. This timely work contributes rich detailed knowledge of how people respond to a world characterised by unprecedented mobility (both voluntary and forced), globalised job markets and an ageing population, as increasing numbers of families find themselves spread across the globe and caring for their elderly parents from a distance.

Emigration is often perceived as a one-way journey -- leaving one's homeland and arriving in, and adjusting to, a new country. In fact, it can be a much more complex and long-drawn-out process than this. The small village of San Fior lies in northeastern Italy. Between 1900 and 1997, more than 200 of its residents emigrated to Perth, forming a closely linked Italian-Australian community. Many of them, and their Australian-born children and grandchildren, have since made "visits home." This book explores the effect of these visits, both on those who left San Fior and those who stayed there.