Unboxing care

Constructions of happiness and gratitude in a Brazilian transnational family’s video production in the United States

Bibliographic Data

ID21722101
AuthorsM Lima Becker (0000-0003-4911-5506, Boston College, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume23
Issue4
Pages725-750
Publication date2023-12-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Early Childhood Literacy (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1468-7984 • E-ISSN: 1741-2919
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/14687984211030668
OpenAlexW3189387557
LanguageEN
Citations received9
References cited44

This case study examines the co-authoring of unboxing videos by one six-year-old, second-generation Brazilian immigrant child and her mother in the United States. These videos were created in response to boxes filled with gifts they received yearly from relatives in Brazil. To understand this mother-daughter dyad and their video production, this study draws on metaphors of mobility, the logics of reciprocity and obligation in gift-exchange, and the concept of care constellations. The analysis of interviews, field notes, and unboxing videos identified specific routes, rhythms, and frictions that fueled this family digital literacy practice. It also suggested that participants were implicated in a pattern of caregiving through a transnational cycle of gift-exchange. These findings disrupt typical framings of the unboxing genre as a manifestation of U.S. capitalist ethos and foreground the material and discursive production of care in a transnational family’s digital literacy practice

Dyad · Ethos · Gratitude · Happiness · Immigration · Obligation · Political science · Social science · Sociology · Child Development and Digital Technology · Law · Literacy, Media, and Education · Psychology · Social Media and Politics · Social Psychology

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