Families across the world are living apart in increasing numbers. This phenomenon is challenging family cohesion and redefining family relationships. A new book edited by Maria Rosario de Guzman, associate professor and extension specialist in Child, Youth and Family Studies; Carolyn Pope Edwards, emeritus professor, Child, Youth and Family Studies; and Jill Brown, associate professor of psychology, Creighton University, sheds light on how distance affects families. “Parenting from Afar and the Reconfiguration of Family Across Distance” is available from Oxford University Press.
“Migration and mobility are reshaping family life in many ways, yet how we look at families, whether in our everyday lives or in research, still has not shifted,” said de Guzman. “We wanted to extend current understanding about diverse family forms around the world and how they configure and reconfigure in response to distance—whether it is because of economic migration, military deployment, fosterage, divorce or other contexts of separation.”
De Guzman and her colleagues hope that this book will inform researchers, higher education faculty and students, policy makers, family assistance professionals and others interested in the challenges of contemporary families and their well-being. The volume brings together scholars from various fields such as education, family studies, psychology, anthropology and geography and explores long-distance family life in the United States, Norway, Thailand, Mexico and numerous other locales.
“Countless families are affected by separation,” de Guzman said. “The United Nations estimates that there about 1 billion domestic or international migrants. Many more families live apart due to other circumstances. For those of us studying or working with families, children, youth and communities, we need to be paying attention to family life across distance.”
More details at: https://go.unl.edu/ngqr