'Why Are You Not Crying?':Understanding Young People’s Transnational Engagements through Funeral Visits to Ghana

This article analyses the ways in which young people with a migration background develop their own transnational engagement with their or their parents' country of origin. Drawing on 17-months of multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork in the Netherlands and Ghana, we add to the emerging literature on 'return' mobilities by analysing young people of Ghanaian background, irrespective of whether they or their parents migrated, and by looking at an under-researched form of mobility that they engage in: that of attending funerals in Ghana. Funerals occupy a central role in Ghanaian society, and thus al... Mehr ...

Verfasser: Akom Ankobrey, Gladys
Mazzucato, Valentina
Wagner, L.B.
Dokumenttyp: Artikel
Erscheinungsdatum: 2021
Reihe/Periodikum: Akom Ankobrey , G , Mazzucato , V & Wagner , L B 2021 , ' 'Why Are You Not Crying?' : Understanding Young People’s Transnational Engagements through Funeral Visits to Ghana ' , African Diaspora , vol. 13 , no. 1-2 , pp. 93-118 . https://doi.org/10.1163/18725465-bja10015
Schlagwörter: 2ND-GENERATION / GLOBALIZATION / Ghana / HOME / LIVES / MIGRANTS / MIGRATION / RETURN / ROOTS / THEMES / funerals / peer relationships / the Netherlands / transnational attachment / transnational engagement / youth mobility
Sprache: Englisch
Permalink: https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-28774485
Datenquelle: BASE; Originalkatalog
Powered By: BASE
Link(s) : https://cris.maastrichtuniversity.nl/en/publications/45e05d0c-1c2e-4207-896a-dd9efba09bf8

This article analyses the ways in which young people with a migration background develop their own transnational engagement with their or their parents' country of origin. Drawing on 17-months of multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork in the Netherlands and Ghana, we add to the emerging literature on 'return' mobilities by analysing young people of Ghanaian background, irrespective of whether they or their parents migrated, and by looking at an under-researched form of mobility that they engage in: that of attending funerals in Ghana. Funerals occupy a central role in Ghanaian society, and thus allow young people to gain knowledge about cultural practices, both by observing and embodying them, and develop their relationships with people in Ghana. Rather than reproducing their parents' transnational attachments, young people recreate these according to their own needs, which involves dealing with tensions. Peer relationships-which have largely gone unnoticed in transnational migration studies-play a significant role in this process.