Doing family

This paper draws on how constructions of ‘the migrant family’ in political discourse influence migrants' and their families' lives. In specific national contexts, ‘the migrant family’ is determined according to the national and European debates and expressed by their respective rules and regulations. By ‘doing family’, migrants and their families develop strategies in order to fit these requirements of living a certain family life. Fulfilling specific norms and perceptions which are not necessarily required for the majority of society is a precondition to succeed. Who is and who is not part of the family, who holds responsibility — such aspects have to be proved and repeatedly reproduced by migrants and their families. This not only affects their position in society, but also has strong implications on their lives as a couple and family, since it requires the continuous adaptation and reconstructions of their everyday reality.     

The welfare family

This article analyzes family transformations resulting from the impact of social welfare policies and modernization in Guadeloupe, an island in the French Caribbean. The analysis is taken from a study of three-generational families in which a “pivot” member between 49 and 53 years of age, one parent, and one adult child were interviewed. The study, combining both quantitative and qualitative methods, concerns the forms of cultural, domestic, and economic exchanges between the generations, in addition to the various social welfare allowances received by the members of the families who were interviewed. The results show the complementarity between public and family forms of support. They also show how social welfare benefits have transformed the respective social status of different generations, the functioning of family solidarity, and the ways that poverty is being fought.     

Inmate family functioning

Two-hundred-nine noninmates and 169 inmates completed questionnaires that assessed retrospective perceptions of 12 dimensions of family life and one overall assessment of quality of family life. Between the inmates and noninmates, means for all dependent variables differed significantly except for self-reliance; however, meaningful eta-squares were found only for dimensions of bridging, disengagement, and quality of life. Among the independent-samples t tests for gender, eta-squares were not meaningful. Implications for family life interventions in correctional facilities are suggested.     

Introduction: Adoption, affiliation, and family recomposition-inventing family continuity

This special issue deals with adoption practices and family recomposition in different societies in the past. Children's survival and family continuity were of major concern, and individual interests were linked, if not subordinated, to family groups. There were many different ways to perpetuate assets and power within the framework of the family. In Europe, systems that stress the importance of patrimonial arrangements houses are generally associated with the Roman conception of property, whereas systems favoring egalitarian redistribution within enlarged kinship groups have affinity with “barbarian” customs. In Japan, China, or on the Pacific atolls, we find other kinds of family systems, but in all of them adoption, affiliation, or family recomposition give priority to family continuity and well-being, inventing solutions to conflict, penury, infertility, and death. No future could be imagined without children, and the succession of generations was secured by these practices, resulting in early geographical, social, and family mobility for children and sometimes young men and women.