Translocal Subjectivities Within Households ‘In Flux’ in Indonesia

Abstract

This paper draws upon fieldwork conducted in the migrant-sending area of Ponorogo, Indonesia between 2014 and 2016. It incorporates the concept of ‘global householding’ (Douglass 2014, 314) while also using a translocal perspective to recognise both the mobilities and immobilities associated with migration. A translocal approach as explicated by Brickell and Datta (2011, 10) rejects the privileging of transnational mobility, and is equally as interested in local-local connections. In places such as Ponorogo, where migration and remittances are especially critical to the socioeconomic fabric of the community, immobile actors are often beholden to the same translocal subjectivities experienced by their mobile counterparts. Hence this paper focuses upon the issue of translocality as a means to reconceptualise notions of ‘movers’ and ‘stayers’ as a more fluid continuum that is inherently linked to the ‘in flux’ nature of households in migrant-sending areas such as Ponorogo. Using three cases studies of husband/wife dyads, we contemplate how a translocal perspective elucidates the ways in which men and women’s migration trajectories – both real and imagined, local and overseas – are constantly renegotiated.