Today's unprecedented migration of people around the globe in search of work has had a widespread and troubling result: the separation of families. In The Scattered Family, Cati Coe offers a sophisticated examination of this phenomenon among Ghanaians living in Ghana and abroad. Challenging oversimplified concepts of globalization as a wholly unchecked force, she details the diverse and creative ways Ghanaian families have adapted long-standing familial practices to a contemporary, global setting. Drawing on ethnographic and archival research, Coe uncovers a rich and dynamic set of familial concepts, habits, relationships, and expectations - what she calls repertories - that have developed over time, through previous encounters with global capitalism. Separated immigrant families, she demonstrates, use these repertoires to help themselves navigate immigration law, the lack of child care, and a host of other problems, as well as to help raise children and maintain relationships the best way they know how. Examining this complex interplay between the local and global, Coe ultimately argues for a rethinking of what family itself means.

About the Author
Cati Coe is associate professor of anthropology at Rutgers University. She is the author of Dilemmas of Culture in African Schools: Youth, Nationalism, and the Transformation of Knowledge, also published by the University of Chicago Press. She lives in Philadelphia.

Reviews
"The Scattered Family is a highly engaging and well-researched book on a neglected topic that is sure to interest not only Africanist scholars but anyone interested in transnational migration and its effects on the family. Exploring the nature of family ties, particularly those between parents and children, among Ghanaians who have emigrated to the United States and Britain for work, Cati Coe contextualizes a host of carefully told narratives within the realm of immigration law and policy, addressing the lives of these migrants from a number of different, intriguing angles." (Jennifer Hasty, University of Pennsylvania)"



Book Information
ISBN 9780226072388
Author Cati Coe
Format Paperback
Page Count 256
Imprint University of Chicago Press
Publisher The University of Chicago Press
Weight(grams) 397g
Dimensions(mm) 23mm * 15mm * 2mm