Sharing Money, Dividing Families: Remittances and Conflict in Transnational Relationships

• In Event: Families and Migration (Co-sponsored by Sociology of the Population Section)

Abstract

Policy narratives celebrate remittances as lifelines for developing economies, yet this obscures the emotional and relational toll remitting exacts on migrants. Drawing on 226 surveys and 27 in-depth interviews with migrant workers in the United Arab Emirates—the world’s second-largest remittance-sending state—we reconceptualize remitting as a relational practice embedded in moral obligation and shot through with affective strain. We extend the concept of remittance relationships to capture how familial and friendship ties are transformed when money earned abroad is spent at home. We find that remittance relationships, separated by time and space, are replete with tensions and conflict. These conflicts arise out of breaches of obligations and reciprocity on the sides of the senders and recipients. Over one in four survey respondents reported that their remitted money was not used as intended, and nearly one-third argued with family or friends over its usage. During the interviews, this percentage rose dramatically, as migrants recalled tense moments that they had repressed. In fact, all but one interviewee experienced one or more instances of tensions or conflict associated with remitting. Drawing from these interviews, we devised a typology to categorize these conflicts according to their cause, duration, outcome and prevalence from permanent or long-term “relational fractures” to temporary or short-term “relational strains.” Relational fractures are irreparable breakdowns of trust following major financial misuse. In contrast, relational strains are short-term disagreements over minor expenditures. But even when outright conflict did not break out, interviewees shared the persistent stress of remitting to friends and family. We call this everyday, inward-looking, pre-emptive anxiety of remitting enough, on time, and to multiple recipients “relational tensions.” Our findings foreground the interpersonal dimensions of migrants’ remittances in one of the world’s most significant migration and remittance hubs, emphasizing the need to reconceptualize these transfers as relational, emotional, and oftentimes, adversarial.

Authors

• Vaishali Garg, New York University Abu Dhabi

• Anju Mary Paul, New York University Abu Dhabi