Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the construction of intimate relationship and family bonds in the context of mobility and migration. The main thrust of my argument is that time is one of the significant factors defined kinship by which the extent of one's commitment and care is measured.

Paper long abstract:

This paper examines the nexus between time and family making in the migration context. It is based on extensive anthropological fieldwork in Berlin with a particular group of Vietnamese women who recently migrated from Central Vietnam through unofficial routes. For many women, the mobility is the result of economic hardship and relationship ruptures. Children of the relationships are often left behind. When a new family is formed in the new settlement, maintaining transnational family ties reflects women-designated assignments. Through a case study of a Vietnamese woman and her life history, I will elucidate the work of making and sustaining relatedness, in which gender, class, religion, and culture all interplay. Time defines kin relations as John Borneman (1992) has observed in the German context: "kin of choice based on shared time and space" (page 194). When her families faced obstacles of geographical distance and the threat of the loss of its meaning, the "time" was often regarded as both causes and potential solutions. As relatedness and commitment need time investment, the woman was torn between the time for her new family and the time for her kids compensating her physical absence. And these times are asynchronous. For this woman, time(s) is not homogeneous but plural as time and place are now intertwined.