Paper short abstract:

Taking as a case-study the migration practices in the postcommunist Romanian village, the paper proposes an analysis of the way the family’s projects and decisions to emigrate are influenced by the reproductive body and its place in the European East-West migration.

Paper long abstract:

In the migration practices of postcommunist Romanian, the village represents a place where families are projecting their existence in close relation to the opportunities of work-migration abroad. The networks which are formed in the process of migration determine, in many cases, the circulation of the entire family in different European spaces. The present study is constructed around an analysis on the way the family's projects and the decisions to emigrate are influenced by the reproductive body and its place in the migratory East-West phenomena. The paper is based on a long-term fieldwork in a number of villages from Campulung region, Romanian, where migration is a current phenomenon in which the status of the family and its prestige are playing a central role. Travelling legally and working illegally, without proper papers or a work-permit, often determine the migrant family to acknowledge the fact the places chosen to emigrate are incompatible with the reproductive function of the body. The status of temporary immigrant, without or waiting for proper official papers, excludes the family with an active reproductive body. Consequently, the migration projects are reconfigured and the return 'back home' becomes the only solution in such cases.