Relative Distance

The socio-economic and political uncertainties of Kenya in the 1990s jeopardised what many saw as the promises of modernity. An increasing number of Kenyans migrated many to Britain a country that felt familiar from Kenyan history. Based on extensive fieldwork in Kenya and the United Kingdom Leslie Fesenmyer's work provides a rich historically nuanced study of the kinship dilemmas that underlie transnational migration and explores the dynamic relationship between those who migrate and those who stay behind. Challenging a focus on changing modes of economic production 'push-pull' factors and globalisation as drivers of familial change she analyses everyday trans-national family life. Relative Distance shows how quotidian interactions exchanges and practices transform kinship on a local and global scale. Through the prism of intergenerational care Fesenmyer reveals that the question of who is responsible for whom is not only a familial matter but is at the heart of relations between individuals societies and states.