Understandings of transnational families in debates on Migration and development

International migration sets in motion a range of significant transnational processes that connect countries and people. How migration interacts with development and how policies might promote and enhance such interactions have, since the turn of the millennium, gained attention on the international agenda. The recognition that transnational practices connect migrants and their families across sending and receiving societies forms part of this debate. The ways in which policy debate employs and understands transnational family ties nevertheless remain underexplored. This article sets out to discern the understandings of the family in two (often intermingled) debates concerned with transnational interactions: The largely state and policydriven discourse on the potential benefits of migration on economic development, and the largely academic transnational family literature focusing on issues of care and the micro-politics of gender and generation. Emphasizing the relation between diverse migration-development dynamics and specific family positions, we ask whether an analytical point of departure in respective transnational motherhood, fatherhood or childhood is linked to emphasizing certain outcomes. We conclude by sketching important strands of inclusions and exclusions of family matters in policy discourse and suggest ways to better integrate a transnational family perspective in global migration-development policy.

Perspectives on gender, migration and transnational work: joint work of social reproduction and care in Southern Europe

This paper presents the "state of the art" and some of the main issues discussed in relation to the topic of transnational migration and reproductive work in southern Europe. We start doing a genealogy of the complex theoretical development leading to the consolidation of the research program, linking consideration of gender with transnational migration and transformation of work and ways of survival, thus making the production aspects as reproductive, in a context of globalization. The analysis of the process of multiscale reconfiguration of social reproduction and care, with particular attention to its present global dimension is presented, pointing to the turning point of this line of research that would have taken place with the beginning of this century, with the rise notions such as "global care chains" (Hochschild, 2001), or "care drain" (Ehrenreich and Hochschild, 2013). Also, the role of this new agency, now composed in many cases women who migrate to other countries or continents, precisely to address these reproductive activities, is recognized. Finally, reference is made to some of the new conceptual and theoretical developments in this area.

Upin & Ipin: Promoting malaysian culture values through animation

Malaysian children lately have been exposed or influenced heavily by digital media entertainment. The rise of such entertainment tends to drive them away from understanding and appreciating the values of Malaysian culture. Upin and Ipin animation has successfully promoted Malaysian folklore culture and has significantly portrayed the art of Malaysian values including Islamic values by providing the platform for harmonious relationship among different societies or groups or religious backgrounds. The focus of this research is to look into the usage of Malaysian culture iconic visual styles such as backgrounds, lifestyles, character archetypes and narrative (storytelling). Therefore, we hope that this research will benefit the younger generation by highlighting the meaning and importance of implicit Malaysian culture.

Places making: participatory construction of scientifi c culture cities

In the framework of the European project Platform of Local Authorities and Communicators Engaged in Science (PLACES), we analyse the articulations between scientifi c communication, public perception of science, processes of citizen participation and apropiation of space, based on a case study of the inhabitants of Teruel city, Autonomous Community of Aragon, Spain. On the interrelationships between these issues, there are a number of contradictions, such as the difference between a high interest for information about science and technology and a low level of recognition and interaction with local institutions involved in those activities, the complex conceptualization of scientifi c space in relation to the “public-private” pair, or an articulation of a claiming civic rethoric and an insuffi cient co-responsibility. We conclude that, in a local context, the dimension of territoriality and, in particular, the identifi cation with the town, is a central mediation for activating citizen participation as part of processes of appropriation of space for setting up cities of scientifi c culture.