(Re)Tracing pre-pandemic connections

Immaterial materialities of parcel-sending and visits home in Moldovan transnational families

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2391293
AutoresSanda Caracentev (0000-0002-6510-5327, London School of Economics and Political Science, autor correspondente)
Ano2024
Volume29
Fascículo4
Páginas440-456
Data de publicação2024-12-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of Material Culture (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1359-1835 • E-ISSN: 1460-3586
EditoraSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/13591835241297822
OpenAlexW4404696461
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas1
Referências citadas26

This article discusses the elusive materiality of staying connected across borders. Objects brought in suitcases during visits home, images of objects sent via private parcel vans, and objects talked about but never sent all embody this connection. Using the concepts of trace and propinquity to presence the departed migrant and the objects used in family practices, I discuss relational proximity in degrees of nearness, considering seemingly immaterial traces of people and objects in material terms. Drawing on ethnographic examples of Moldovan private parcel van service users, I show how progressively immaterial transnational connections forged before the COVID-19 pandemic continued to create relations even in the absence of visits home during lockdowns

Aesthetics · Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19 · Economic geography · Geography · Materiality (auditing · Pandemic · Romanian · Sociology · Tracing · Arctic and Russian Policy Studies · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity · Medicine · Migration and Labor Dynamics