Content and Objectives

Transnational families are families whose members remain in their country of origin while one or more family members migrate to other countries. Since the end of the 1990s, this phenomenon has increasingly been the focus of academic research. However, up until now only a limited number of studies have comprehensively dealt with transnational family arrangements in the context of forced migration. Both the original decision to migrate and the situation in the destination country depend not only on the migrants themselves, but also on their family context. The aim of the project is therefore to investigate the relationship between different family arrangements as well as the changes caused by the migration and the lives of refugees in Germany.

The project, carried out in cooperation with the Research Centre of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, analyses the forms, structures and spatial dispersion of transnational families. In addition, not only the initial formation of transnational families will be examined, but also subsequent changes in family arrangements, such as staying in the destination country, onward migration or returning to the country of origin as well as family reunification practices. The geographic separation of individual family members induced by migration may change the relationships within a family: the project will therefore also examine how relationships with the family members back in the country of origin are maintained and which family exchange and support processes exist. Furthermore, the interactions between family arrangements and social networks and social integration in Germany will be investigated.

News and more information about TransFAR can be found on the project's own website.