When children are not ‘the left behind’: Transnational practices of intra-regional mobility in the South Pacific | Intellect Skip to content
1981
Volume 2, Issue 1
  • ISSN: 2397-7140
  • E-ISSN: 2397-7159

Abstract

Abstract

Much of the traditional literature on migration in the South Pacific describes Pacific Islands as countries of permanent out-migration directed towards the Rim countries. Yet over the past two decades there has been considerable diversification of the routes and patterns of South Pacific mobility. This article, by focusing on emerging mobility trajectories between Pacific Island Countries, ventures into the scarcely studied arena of intra-regional migration with a case study of Nauruan migrant families in Fiji. Conceptually, this research is positioned within the literature on transnationalism. Yet most studies on transnational family migration have focused on ‘South–North’ migration routes; emphasized the impacts of both economic and social remittances on local communities at origin; and identified migratory patterns characterized by family separation, with parents ‘on the move’ and children and older family members ‘left-behind’. This article, which relies on a mix-method approach integrating quantitative data and qualitative information, provides a complementary perspective highlighting the centrality of education as primary driver of the migration process, the pivotal role of children in the construction of transnational social fields and the intersections between institutional structures, self-initiated practices of movement and kinship relations in shaping the family migratory trajectories.

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/content/journals/10.1386/tjtm.2.1.43_1
2018-07-01
2024-03-28
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