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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Sociol.
Sec. Migration and Society
Volume 9 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fsoc.2024.1498744
This article is part of the Research Topic Interconnected Lives: Experiences and Resilience of Transnational Families in a Shifting Global Landscape View all 7 articles

Transnational Intergenerational Relationships and Doing Transcultural Family through Mandarin Learning: An Ethnographic Glance at Chinese Dynamics in Four Intercultural Families in Germany

Provisionally accepted
Jiayin Li-Gottwald Jiayin Li-Gottwald *
  • Helmut Schmidt University, Hamburg, Germany

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    This article explores the micro dimension within the field of intercultural family studies. The ethnographic study focuses on Chinese elements in transcultural upbringing practices within families with Chinese mothers and German fathers raising their children in Germany. It builds on the notion of family figuration practice (Widmer, 2021) in transnational grandparentsgrandchildren relations, particularly Confucian-based transnational grandparenting, and the development of a 'third space' (Bhabha, 1994) for transcultural family upbringing within intercultural families. Additionally, it incorporates the concepts of discourse perspective of culture and assemblage to explore how Chinese culture and identity converge in a transcultural family upbringing context. The findings show that families have varied experiences with transnational intergenerational communication influenced by their life stage, language abilities, and socio-economic factors.

    Keywords: third space, Transnational intergenerational relations, doing transcultural families, mandarin, Intercultural families

    Received: 19 Sep 2024; Accepted: 23 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Li-Gottwald. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Jiayin Li-Gottwald, Helmut Schmidt University, Hamburg, Germany

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