Mediated (Un)Doing Family

Cross-Border Parenting in Chinese Families

Bibliographic Data

ID2414708
AuthorsChuyue Ou (0000-0002-0107-842X, Jinan University), Todd L Sandel (0000-0003-2781-0786, University of Macau), Zhongxuan Lin (0000-0002-9316-5976, Jinan University, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume9
Issue4
Publication date2023-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial Media + Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2056-3051 • E-ISSN: 2056-3051
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/20563051231211941
OpenAlexW4388576420
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited55

This article elucidates the emergence of technology-empowered family practices that cross-border families develop to re-spatialize and re-temporalize their family activities and daily rhythms. Standing on the concepts of 'doing family' and polymedia, we propose a dual framework of mediated doing/undoing family and explain it in an integrated WeChat environment. Specifically, the frame contains three pairs of dimensions: active versus inactive, everyday co-presence versus absent-presence and invisibility, and historical roots versus anti-traditions. Drawing on a 2-year ethnography of cross-border students communicating with their parents, we use the frame to further illuminate a set of dialectical relations between mediated doing and undoing family, and between cultural motherhood and fatherhood-culturally (un)doing gender. Findings fill gaps in the existing literature on the undoing affordances of technologies, and supplement insights on the experiences of transnational/cross-border parenthood. Our study also discusses the dual dynamics of mediated (un)doing family and presents a critical reflection on the effects of technology on gender asymmetries and gender dynamics

Affordance · Dialectic · Epistemology · Ethnography · Invisibility · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Undoing · Anthropology · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Migration and Labor Dynamics · Psychology · Social Psychology