Transnational belonging and disrupted care relationships

Abstract

Abstract For refugees, forced displacement in combination with increasingly strict barriers to family reunification means that transnational care relationships are often their only way of caring for their families. These relationships are often complicated by the precarious living conditions of family members and are also more liable to disruptions through recurring instability as well as limitations to mobility or connectivity. In this article, I investigate the transnational experiences of refugees settled in New Zealand and Sweden, and particularly their experiences of disruptions to transnational care relationships. Using a dialogical lens, I consider how their sense of responsibility towards their transnational family impacts their lives when they are unable to provide sufficient responses to requests for care, and how this in turn impacts activities designed to promote settlement. I argue that it is essential for resettlement nations to consider how family separation and unfulfilled care responsibilities impact resettled refugees.