What are the relational dynamics of family life as it is lived across vast distances and over time? What underpins these relations, practices, and experiences of being apart and yet together? Based on a long-term multi-sited fieldwork carried out in Spain and Bolivia from 2013 to 2015, this study sets out to address these questions by investigating caring practices, mediated connections, (non)material exchanges, and lived experiences of “doing” and “feeling” family across borders. It conveys the story of ten families divided between Madrid and the Bolivian urban areas of Cochabamba, Sucre, and Santa Cruz de la Sierra. Taking as a point of departure the encounters with middle-aged women who migrated to Spain in the early 2000s, the thesis moves back and forth between “here” and “there” to provide a polyphonic account of family relationships as they are sustained, enacted, and experienced by both those who leave and those who stay. It does so by exploring the transnational provision of care, the routines of keeping in touch, the exchange of remittances and material goods, as well as the interplay of these practices with the management of emotions and the circulation of affects. The term “affective maps” is employed here as a concept to capture the myriad of relatives taking part in these connections, in that it points out how these are strongly interdependent relationships through which people have the capacity to affect and to be affected by one another across distance. More specifically, this study demonstrates how the various ways of dealing with transnational family life are constantly shaped by migration regimes, restrictive policies, and global inequalities, on the one hand, and by power social relations, gender and generational roles, and life-course stages, on the other. To illuminate the dynamics at play, the notion of “feel-work” is introduced as a tuned-in ethnographic practice that simultaneously engages the body and the mind, reasoning and feeling. This study is thus a multi-sited ethnography contributing further knowledge into emotions and affects in human mobility, while it consistently uses emotions and affects as methodological and epistemological tools. The thesis argues that family members recreate a sense of “closeness” and maintain their emotional connection despite not being physically together nor seeing each other over long periods of absence. Ultimately, in grappling with the affective dimension of family relationships in the distinct context of current Bolivia-to-Spain migration, this thesis aims to shed some light on the emotional and the corporeal as constitutive aspects of the ethnographic endeavor.

Drawing on multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork carried out in Bolivia and Spain, this article explores the reconfiguration of family relations maintained by middle-aged migrant women in a context of transnational migration. Indeed, transnational migration triggers contradictory feelings for those leaving and for those who stay behind. The individuals interviewed repeatedly express mixed feelings of guilt, pride, sadness and satisfaction, often interwoven with meaningful silences, demands, and expectations. In this particular instance, the aim is to visibilize the emotional dimension inherent in family relations at a distance to demonstrate how migration is also affected by the weight of care responsibilities, the family life course, gender roles, or intergenerational relations.

Based on the Spanish case, in this article we explore the connection between migration policies, family policies, gender regimes and the insertion of Latin American migrant women into the domestic work sector. Over the first decade of the twenty-first century, Latin America became the main region of origin of migrants who had settled in Spain, being women the first link in these migration chains. The main factors that have affected the configuration of this feminization are linked to migration policies and patterns of migration, the features of the welfare state, the characteristics of the labor market and the way in which gender organizes and stratifies migration and domestic work. The achievement of national middle class women's rights to conciliate their professional and family life through outsourcing domestic work to non-national women also brings with it a deep inequality in terms of citizenship.

This chapter is the result of data obtained in fieldwork carried out mainly in Madrid, Spain, between March and June 2010. Interviews were conducted with four different social organizations (The Spanish-Ecuadorian association Rumiñahui, the Association of Domestic Workers SEDOAC-Servicio Domestico Activo, the NGO Accem and the trade union Comisiones Obreras), and with seven migrant domestic workers (six female and one male). The majority of the workers interviewed were between 27 and 51 years old, had an irregular immigration status and several of them were responsible for families in their country of origin. Prior to their emigration, none of the interviewees had engaged in domestic work, and were forced to enter into the Spanish labour market through this regime – for the most part as live-ins, at least in their first job. The interviewees came from Latin America (Central and South America, and the Caribbean), and North Africa.

With the entrance of Spain into the EU, the Mediterranean became the southern border of Europe and a focal point of the migratory pressure from Africa to Europe. Since then, the fight against irregular immigration, the increased surveillance and migration control, and the cooperation with countries of migration transit and origin have become core elements of the Spanish migration policy. The imposition of visas to African countries, the border control, the reinforcement of the fence in Ceuta and Melilla, the Frontex development, EUROSUR, SIVE, the Seahorse Project, the return agreements, the joint surveillance patrols at the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, and the inclusion of migration as a theme in Spanish external relations with emigration countries are instruments of externalization and Europeanization of Spanish migration policy.In this article, we focus our attention on the effects of migration control on the Spanish maritime border on the transit of migrants coming from Africa. The experiences of migrants who arrived irregularly in the Andalusian coast between 2010 and 2011 are taken as a case study. In particular, we are interested in exploring the violation offundamental rights throughout the different stages that make up the migration process: starting at the place of origin and the journey experience on land, the situation of migrants at sea, the interception of vessels, landing and retention. We will discuss in more detail the processes of identification, treatment, and protection of particularly vulnerable groups, as well as the gender relations that are embedded within these practices.

Con el ingreso de España a la UE, el Mediterráneo se convirtió en la frontera sur de Europa y devino punto focal de la presión migratoria de África hacia Europa. Desde entonces, la lucha contra la inmigración irregular, el incremento de la vigilancia y el control migratorio y la cooperación con los países de origen y tránsito de la inmigración se han convertido en elementos centrales de la política migratoria española. La imposición de visados a las países africanos, el control fronterizo, el reforzamiento de la frontera de Ceuta y Melilla, el despliegue de Frontex, SIVE, Proyecto Seahorse, EUROSUR, los acuerdos de retorno, los patrullajes conjuntos del Atlántico y del Mediterráneo y la inclusión de la migración en las relaciones exteriores españolas con los países de emigración son instrumentos de externalización y europeización de la política migratoria española.En este artículo centraremos nuestra atención en los efectos que el control migratorio de la frontera marítima española tiene en los tránsitos de migrantes procedentes de África. Se tomará como caso de estudio las experiencias de personas migrantes llegadas de manera irregular a las costas andaluzas en el periodo 2010-2011. En particular, nos interesa explorar la vulneración de los derechos fundamentales a lo largo de las distintas etapas que componen el proceso migratorio: desde la salida de su lugar de origen y las experiencia del viaje por tierra, la situación de las personas migrantes en el mar, la interceptación de las embarcaciones, el desembarco y la retención. Analizaremos con mayor detenimiento los procesos de identificación, tratamiento y protección de grupos especialmente vulnerables, y las relaciones de género que atraviesan estas prácticas.

Distintas investigaciones han demostrado la importancia del trabajo doméstico como sector privilegiado de inserción de las trabajadoras migrantes en España, principalmente en los primeros años de su inmigración, independientemente del nivel formativo. Esta concentración, lejos de responder a las trayectorias laborales de estas trabajadoras, es el resultado de la articulación de diversas variables en el contexto de recepción (políticas migratorias, políticas laborales, relaciones de género, características del mercado de trabajo, concepciones sobre el trabajo doméstico, etc.) y las formas de organización del trabajo productivo y reproductivo de las familias migrantes. En esta ocasión, este artículo se propone analizar las variables que han incidido en el proceso de feminización de las migraciones hacia España y su vinculación con la importancia del empleo de hogar como lugar preponderante de inserción laboral de las mujeres migrantes no comunitarias. Posteriormente, se resumirán algunos datos estadísticos, para luego presentar los resultados de un trabajo de campo exploratorio con empleadas de hogar en situación irregular residentes en Madrid, prestando atención a las condiciones de trabajo, relaciones con los empleadores, relaciones de género, proyectos migratorios, vida familiar e ideologías del cuidado en origen y destino.

Several researches have shown the importance of domestic work as a main sector of inclusion for migrant women in Spain, mainly during first years of immigration, regardless of their educational level. This concentration, far from responding to labor trajectories of these workers, is the result of the articulation of several variables within the reception context (immigration policies, employment policies, gender relations, labor market characteristics, ideas on domestic work, etc.) and the ways in which migrant families organize productive and reproductive work. In this case, this paper aims to analyze the variables which have influenced the feminization process of migration towards Spain and its connection with the importance of domestic work as the main sector of labor insertion for non-EU migrant women. Afterwards, we summarize some statistical data, and moreover therefore we present the results of an exploratory fieldwork with domestic workers in an irregular situation in Madrid, paying attention to working conditions, relations with employers, gender relations, migration projects, family life and ideas on care work in origin and destination.