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50 Int'l Migration Rev. e1 (2016)

handle is hein.journals/imgratv50 and id is 1 raw text is: 51 INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION REVIEW e02 Book Review The Scattered Family: Parenting, African Migrants, and Global Inequality. By Cati Coe. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 2014. 244 pages. $27.50. MAIA C. MARCHETTI-MERCER University of the Witwatersrand The Scattered Family offers a thoughtful and engaging analysis of Ghanaian migra- tion to the United States, while at the same time challenging some of the more traditional Western understandings of transnational families worldwide. As high- lighted by Falicov's (2007) work on migration and families, present transna- tional trends resulting from global migra- tion challenge us to develop new theories and conceptualizations of family life and force a rethinking of traditional dis- courses of family connections and rela- tionships. Coe's well-balanced presentation of social history, culture, theory, and family narratives takes the reader along a journey where the stories of study participants are aptly used to highlight the book's main arguments. Although this text is theoreti- cally comprehensive, there is something deeply personal about the narratives of par- ticipants, where ethnography is employed to present new theoretical perspectives. At the outset Coe provides a thor- ough historical and social contextual analy- sis of Ghanaian migration, allowing the reader to understand how certain cultural practices are interwoven into family life, before exploring how these are impacted by migration. Migration, of course, is not a new phenomenon in Africa, where mobil- ity and movement have a long historical foundation, and Coe effectively shows how family relationships in Ghana are concep- tualized and understood differently than in much of the West. This is highlighted not only in terms of sociological and psycho- logical understandings of migration but also in terms of how present US immigra- tion policy effectively ignores the family realities of migratory populations. Although focusing specifically on Ghanaian migration to the United States, Coe asks a number of intriguing questions about dominant ways of viewing immigra- tion and perceptions of successful immi- gration. Coe interrogates the concepts of acculturation and assimilation, arguing that they do not capture adequately the flexibil- ity of migrant families when entering a for- eign country. Migrants, she shows, make use of available cultural resources quite cre- atively during this process. To illustrate her point, Coe uses the concept of a reper- toire that provides a more nuanced expla- nation of how emigrant families engage with a new country, while maintaining strong links with their country of origin and navigating their own family connections across national divides. These repertoires provide migrants with a framework for interpreting and responding to the challenges of a new soci- ety and flexible and creative ways of engag- ing with it. Coe specifically examines how Ghanaian immigrants and their families adapt these repertoires to the parent- child separation brought about when parents leave the country. The concept of fostering is also crucial to understanding family relation- ships in Ghanaian society, an important aspect of which is the mobility of children. As argued by Page (1989), fostering is embedded in West-African society, where social reproduction and parental roles are segmented in such a way that different roles can be assumed by different members of the wider kin group. This concept of foster- ing challenges Western ways of conceptual- izing family life and an emotionally stable family unit. It also questions understand- ings of proper mothering, especially the mother's constant physical presence. Coe interrogates traditional understandings of care and invites the reader to view care as C 2016 by the Center for Migration Studies of New York. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/imre.12259 IMR Volume 50 Number 1 (Spring 2016):el-e2 el

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