Money and family relationships: the biography of transnational money

Morals are at the centre of international remittances. Sending money home defines being part of a family, being a good son, a good brother. In India and China where international remittances are the highest, money is a medium of relationship and is shared two ways across the generations. Remittances are the market face of this transnational currency of care. Drawing on a ten year qualitative study of migration, money and family among Indian migrants to Australia, I found that transnational money changes meaning and direction with changing migration patterns. The first generation Indian migrants, who came as nuclear families to settle between the 1970s and early 1990s, sent money primarily to their parents. Money as well as communication went one-way from the migrant to the family in the source country. The value of money changed as it crossed borders. Different contexts of earning and spending, meant a dollar sent across borders could embody less sacrifice than the dollar sent within the country. Money sent could also be devalued compared to the face to face care that siblings at home offered ageing parents. If this led to uneven inheritance, it led to questions of belonging. Among recent migrants who came as students or skilled migrants from 1996 onwards, money and communication flows two ways between India and Australia. Being a good parent as well as being a good son is expressed in the reciprocal flow of money. This has been enabled possible by the growing wealth of the Indian middle classes, an easing of foreign exchange restrictions, and cheaper and more frequent communication. Parents send money to their children for education, housing and business and later as part of family reunion. Flying grandmothers help care for their grandchildren. The migrants plan extended families, replicating the families they left behind. The idea of family, being a good son, a good parent remains at the centre. But the story, meanings and flow of remittances have changed.