Familias transnacionales de brasileños a principios del siglo XXI: aportes para el análisis y la medición

Abstract

International migration has created a phenomenon that has become significant for contemporary social research: the formation of transnational families. These are families that have members residing in different countries and who, despite the geographical distance, continue to share resources fairly intensively. Although the phenomenon may not appear particularly new at first sight, these transnational structures present particular characteristics, which have been amplified by the recent development of modes of transport and means of communication, which are reshaping relations between family members. The article uses two analytical strategies: the first is conceptual and seeks to construct an analytical framework to characterize this type of family unit. The second strategy is empirical; its shows the potential and limitations of 2010 Brazilian census data to identify transnational families formed at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The results of the analysis show that international migration of some household members is a quantitatively significant phenomenon in some regions of the country. Although census data do not support identification of relationships between migrants and their families in order to describe cross-border family formations, the characteristics of migrants and their households of origin indicate that there is a strong possibility of this phenomenon occurring in Brazil. It is important to incorporate the family perspective in contemporary studies on international migration in Brazil, in terms both of refining the concepts and improving the data capture methods.