Paper short abstract:

This paper presents the complexities of transnational families' ability to safeguard its members against the risk in different historical and spatial contexts of economic uncertainty. The paper draws upon my ethnography of transnational families across Poland and Finland since the Cold War to date.

Paper long abstract:

This paper indicates the successes, tensions and pitfalls of transnational families' attempts at helping their members deal with various forms of economic uncertainty experienced in different economic and cultural contexts, from the Cold War past to the post-Cold War present. The paper argues that thanks to the historical perspective the particularities of the recent economic turmoil and its effect on transnational family members' ability and willingness to help can be seen in a better light. The paper is based on the multi-sited ethnography of transnational families conducted across Poland and Finland, encompassing their life since the Cold War to date.

During the Cold War transnational family transfers constituted a buffer against uncertainties of socialist shortage economy for those in Poland. The capitalist 1989-shift introduced in Poland new uncertainties related to shortage of income and employment rather than problems with supply, but also increased various groups' material welfare. Simultaneously, I noted an intensification of cultural uncertainties related to principles of transnational exchange. The transnational wealth transfer became a contested terrain. It reminded that risk and economic uncertainty are subjective categories susceptible to different reading, especially if people speak from different national locations within a common transnational space. In a situation of recent crisis important was also how both states were imagined to help their residents deal with the risk. It seemed that social welfare system in Finland ensured its residence with a buffer against uncertain times, whereas those in Poland were left relaying on their families for support.