Caregiving in Polish-German Transnational Social Space: Circulating Narratives and Intersecting Heterogeneities

Transnational caregiving has recently provoked a number of studies on the impact of migration on the reorganisation of care arrangements, family dynamics, and gender roles. Yet, the literature on transnational caregiving rarely discusses the ambivalences which migrants encounter in the provision of care. Twenty interviews with migrants from Poland in Germany and ten interviews with their relatives in Poland reveal that transnational childcare is mitigated between a wish for the integration of their children into the German education system and the need to maintain ties to relatives and friends in Poland. These mediations synchronise socialisation within and outside the (transnational) family, yet also connect families with each other (across borders) through reciprocity such as intergenerational contracts. The implications of caregiving are the differences in life chances - shaped by transnationality, class, gender, and age - through participation in relevant social fields such as the labour market and the education system.