Doctoral Dissertation Resarch: Gender Roles and Ethnicity in Transnational Migration

Elizabeth Heger Boyle

PI and Erika Busse

University of Minnesota

Current iterature on gender and migration provides divergent findings regarding gender hierarchies. Some scholars find that migration opens room for gender transformations, while others find that it reinforces patriarchal systems. Further, scholars who emphasize the gendered nature of migration have to date focused primarily on immigrants living in the receiving country. Researchers who study transnational communities in both the receiving and sending societies do not address the question of transformations in husband-wife relationships. This research compares three types of Peruvian families: husband-leading migration, wife-leading migration, and family unity migration, and focuses on the question: What are the mechanisms that exacerbate or moderate patriarchal relations in transnational families? Thus, this research aims to resolve a contradiction in the literature about whether transnational connections reaffirm or erode gender hierarchies. The hypothesis is that patriarchal relations will change in form and social arena but will not necessarily go away.

This research is a multi-site ethnographic fieldwork in the U.S. and Peru. Examining not only families and individuals located in the United States, but also their relatives in Peru, allows me to observe strategies adopted by men and women to impose and resist power in their relationships in each type of family. As these mechanisms are present in different social arenas, this research focuses on these dynamics in households, at the community level, and through transnational connections. The investigator conducts in-depth interviewing with and intensive participant observation of multiple members of the same family in the U.S. and in Peru. In so doing, this research investigates the gendered structure of the family and its interconnections with ethnic constructions pertaining to family. The research occurs in three phases. The first (Paterson, NJ in 2006) and the second phases (in Peru 2007) consist of 66 interviews (32 with women and 34 with men) and ethnographic observations within each type of family. The third and last phase will be in Paterson, NJ (2008).

This study makes an important contribution in that it places family at the center of the analysis, highlighting the family's role as a site where gender and ethnic ideas and practices are shaped and reshaped in transnationalism. This study will also provide a foundation for creating methodological tools to study families living in two (or more countries). Finally, study findings will be made accessible to a larger audience, including organizations that serve migrant families and communities both in the U.S. and in Peru.