Transnational families are families whose members are dispersed across two or more countries and who share a sense of collective familyhood across borders (Bryceson and Vuorela 2002). Doing family across borders is a growing form of family that has caught attention in both academia and other fields. In mid-May a group of roughly 20 academics and non-academics gathered around the topic of transnational families at CASTLE, the research institute on transnational families at the University Babes-Bolyai in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. The objectives of the symposium – co-organised by the IMISCOE Standing Committee on Migrant Transnationalism (MITRA) and the COST Action on Transnational Family Dynamics in Europe (TraFaDy) - were to critically examine the intersection of migration policies and transnational family dynamics in Europe and to jointly explore avenues for research-policy dialogues and collaborative action to ensure the rights and wellbeing of transnational families. The academics were PhD students, postdocs and senior scholars from universities in Czechia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Poland, the Netherlands, Ireland, Romania and Sweden,, while the non-academic participants came from national, local and international organizations in Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, and Romania. Many of the participants had overlapping experiences from positions in and outside academia, while many non-academics had experiences from positions in different governmental institutions, NGOs and from both policy-making as well as strategic and operative work.
The mapping exercise we conducted the first day showed that the majority of the participants had worked on and with children in transnational families, including some that worked specifically on child protection and children that stayed behind. Other thematic expertise included care responsibilities and the organization of care in transnational families in general and care needs resulting from disabilities and chronic illnesses specifically. Further expertise included parenting, wellbeing and health, integration, social protection, as well as migration trajectories, return and reintegration, remittances and religious, economic and marital transnationalism.
Generally, the participants had a vast experience of collaborating with (non)academics. They have done this through various means, such as participatory research (co-research with beneficiaries) and action research, including theatre plays, storytelling and art, through policy briefs, reports and brochures as well as through publishing in publication outlets read by practitioners. Other methods of engagement included think tanks, student-led community groups, the organization of shared events, such as conferences and panels including pitch&mix, workshops and roundtables with policy-makers and practitioners, consultations in drafting public policies, participating in awareness raising campaigns and activities related to lifelong learning.
The participants identified quite a few challenges in collaboration between academics and non-academics. Among the major ones are issues of terminology and epistemology, as well as administrative obstacles. With regards to the former, participants shared an understanding that academics are often committed to a different level of complexity than non-academics. As a result of this communication across the different sectors becomes more intricate to misunderstandings and hence requires significant time and commitment from participants on both sides. This in turn makes collaboration a cost-intensive undertaking from both sides. In addition to this, the terminology, the problem description and the categories used often differs between policy makers, practitioners, NGOs and academics. For example, many academic participants feel the need the use the policy terminology of ‘children left behind’ to make themselves understood to policy makers who operate with this category. Many are highly critical of the use of this category as they feel the term comes with a number of assumptions and accusations that are not necessarily supported by empirical evidence. With regard to problem description, there can be a mismatch between what is considered an ‘academic problem’ (a gap in the body of knowledge) and what policy-makers and practitioners see as a social or public problem. Epistemologically, participants pointed out, policy-makers usually have a state-oriented epistemic position (and problem description) while academics (often) have a human-oriented epistemic position. NGOs have their own self-interest and therefore describe problems from their own specific point of view.
Despite these challenges, the academic participants expressed interest in collaboration across sectors and realized the importance of it in order to contribute to a societal change on the basis of their research. Non-academic participants shared the impression that overall more openness from policy-makers towards academia is needed. They deemed it imperative though that researchers back up their public engagement with evidence from their research.
Finally, what works well in the participants’ experience? Generally, everyone agreed that things usually work well when the different stakeholders have a joint interest in an issue. Participants realized the use of establishing networks between academics and non-academics as a long-term investment which can foster the trust needed to collaborate on issues, considering the above-described challenges. Face-to-face meetings are generally experienced as fruitful and positive. Academic participants felt that they are often successful in bringing in the micro-level perspective on an issue, which is also connected to the fact that academics have access to people and experiences in a way that neither policy-makers nor practitioners have. Academics experienced valuation of their work when policy-makers show interest in the micro-level perspectives, or when research can contribute to training sessions for non-academics (for examples through case exercises). Also, given the above-mentioned differences in terminology and epistemology, some suggested to align research interests (including terminology etc.) already at the stage of proposal writing (in a collaborative process between academics and non-academics). When non-academics are part of the research project, they can play a vital role in disseminating research findings to relevant audiences they have access to. Finally, visual communication (movies, short movies, postcards, posters) were experienced as useful to reach an audience outside of academia.
A key take away for MITRA is to continue building relationships and engaging in platforms for communication between academics, practitioners and policy-makers as a way to facilitate mutual understanding between actors and contribute to evidence-based policy-making to benefit migrant families and society as a whole.
Reference:
Bryceson, D. & Vuorela, U. (2002). The Transnational Family: New European Frontiers and Global Networks. New York: Berg.