As migrants stay in touch with relatives and friends in their countries of origin, the transnational relationships that ensue are typically marked by a mix of proximity and distance. Maintaining emotional closeness, fulfilling obligations, and crafting a respectable social status are concerns that can be challenging to combine. What roles do moral norms, status ideals and money play in decisions to migrate and in efforts to stay in touch? How do migrants negotiate spatial and social distance as they manage those interactions? How do monetary transactions shape the relationships between those who leave and those who stay behind?

In this breakfast seminar Jørgen Carling and María Hernández Carretero will address these questions in the context of the on-going PRIO project Theorizing Risk Money and Moralities in Migration (TRiMM).