Familial Curriculum Making in Transnational Families: Nationness and Cultural Connections
By Naomi Nirupa David, Deakin University, Australia
Source: Freepik
My thesis was situated in theories, practice(s) and lived experiences of transnationality. My story as a transnational child and parent underpins my interest in migrant worlds and knowledge. Transnational families in contemporary migration landscapes are identified as a rapidly growing group and regularly placed in the hot seat of contextual national discussions (Hall, 2018; Vertovec, 2020). The recognised growth, opportunities and challenges faced by transnational families in Australia is many-sided however my study draws attention to the multilayered nationness and cultural connections that are navigated. Puzzling out nationness and cultural connections in transnational families as the area of inquiry in my study privileges notions of curriculum-making in the home (Clandinin, et al., 2016). Familial curriculum-making in this study draws from definitions and notions of curriculum presented by Clandinin, Caine, Lessard and Huber (2019). Their elevation of knowledges made in the home and interpretations of individual experiences supported my study which focused closely on the lives of three participating transnational families. Prioritizing transnational families’ stories brings to the forefront participating families’ knowledges of nationness and cultural connections as personally rich and resistant to typecasting through culturally biased standards.
Source: Freepik
Rationale
Due to the impact of rapid globalisation on migration, further research is warranted to better understand current transnational family experiences in Australia (Appaduari, 2003). Rizvi (2011) and Vertovec (2023) dismiss the concept of fixed migration narrative. Their research advocates for continued inquiry into the experiences and perspectives of transnational families as significant to develop ongoing understandings of transnational lives that add to dynamic views of transnationality and migration. Seeking to understand the negotiations made by transnational families embraces the nature of constructed and reconstructed of multi-layered belongings and makes their voices salient in nationness narratives.
Source: Freepik
Aims
The aim of my qualitative narrative research was to explore how transnational families in Australia navigate complex nationness and cultural connections through their familial curriculum making. Familial curriculums embrace the stories of home life, educational experiences, professional interactions and cultural experiences that are interpreted, embodied, resisted and discussed in the domestic spaces of the transnational family (Clandinin, 2019). The multi-layered lived experiences and knowledge shared by participating families pointed to the distinctive nature of transnationality and the significance of their stories to live by in the context of contemporary migration that led to the development of the term ‘Transnational Familial curriculum-making’ (David, 2024) introduced in my study.
Exploring data that shaped Transnational Familial curriculum making
As I began to analyze the data and spent time studying the in-depth stories that participants shared the analysis reiterated how unique participants narratives were. There were often times during the analysis that my interest in discovering similarities seemed thwarted by the individuality of each participant. I had constructed a theoretical framework in my study that applied postcolonial concepts that viewed nation as imagined, felt, perceived and experienced rather than physical and fixed. Constructed nation led to nationness (Anderson, 2020; Bhabha, 2004), which is the term used regularly in my enquiry. Nationness from a postcolonial perspective resists a fixed reading of nation as a singularly physical form (Bhabha, 2004; Massey, 1999). Nationness, as creatively assembled through diverse influences such as events that take place in family histories, childhood, cultural re-storying, social engagement and resistance, illustrates some of the complexities of families’ nationness stories (Clark, 2016).
The assembly of nationness guided my analysis and led to three key three key themes which shaped my findings:
The durability of childhood (s) in shaping cultural connections
The contextual worlds of nationness
The connections between the past and present that shape transnational familial curriculum making
The analysis of stories that were shared and lived experiences that participants reflected on highlighted how over time relational interactions with transnational families provide insights in family knowledges, priorities and perspectives that can only be nurtured through relationships.
I acknowledge that my study is a small study with three participating transnational families. The sample size and the time constraints for completion limited the current study. However, the development of Transnational familial curriculum making as a relational theory creates opportunities for further studies with greater numbers of migrant families with a range of nationness stories.
Contribution: Transnational familial curriculum-making
Source: Freepik
Transnational familial curriculum making is introduced in this study and is the focus of my presentation. As a contribution the term re-theorises current definitions of Familial Curriculum Making used in Narrative Inquiry (Clandinin et.al, 2016). Transnational familial curriculum making as it has been re-theorised and introduced in this study places a spotlight on transnational families, highlighting relational characteristics that can draw attention to how navigations of nationness and cultural connections take place in the domestic setting. Transnational family curriculum making as relational is iterative and therefore the re-theorising is dynamic with more iterations to come as migrant experiences change (Appadurai, 2003; Geertz, 1986; Pieterse, 2001).
References
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Appadurai, A. (Ed.). (2003). Globalization. Duke University Press.
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Clandinin, D. J. (2019). Journeys in narrative inquiry: The selected works of D. Jean Clandinin. Routledge.
Clark, A. (2016). Private lives, public history. Melbourne University Press.
Geertz, C. (1986). Making experience, authoring selves. In V. Turner & E. Bruner (Eds.), The anthropology of experience (pp. 373–380). University of Illinois Press.
Hall, S. (2018). Cultural studies 1983: A theoretical history. Duke University Press.
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Pieterse, J. N. (2001). Hybridity, so what? Theory, Culture & Society, 18(2–3), 219–245. https://doi.org/10.1177/026327640101800211
Rizvi, F. (2011). Experiences of cultural diversity in the context of an emergent transnationalism. European Educational Research Journal, 10(2), 180–188. https://doi.org/10.2304/eerj.2011.10.2.180
Vertovec, S. (2020). Two cheers for migration studies. Comparative Migration Studies, 8(1), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40878-020-00195-0
Vertovec, S. (2023). Superdiversity: Migration and social complexity. Routledge.