Long-term, long-distance couples and families: implications for theory and social change

Long-term, long-distance couples and families: implications for theory and social change. Within the context of our increasingly globalised societies, the boundaries of what constitutes a family is being constantly stretched and ideas of relationships, intimacies, and identities have become more fluid and problematic (Baumann, 2013a, 2013b; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 2014) as well as more complex and articulated (Finch, 2007; Holmes, 2004, 2014; Duncan et al., 2014; Liefbroer et al, 2015; Upton-Davies, 2012; Satta et al., 2020; Smart, 2007). Several structural changes and constraints—among which the changing nature of work and the job market, socio-demographic changes, changes in gender and intergenerational relations, a growing geographical mobility, a different organisation and perception of time, and a different availability of resources to make the family/life balance work—largely (but not entirely) explains the growing phenomenon of distance couples and families, whose ways of doing family and intimacy at a distance possess important theoretical and political implications. Several authors describe the new forms of family and intimate relationships that emerge as a result of mobility and geographical distance between their partners by using the notion of “mobile intimacy” (Elliott and Urry, 2010; Holdsworth, 2013; Hjorht and Lim, 2012; Hjorth, 2013; Raiti, 2007; Baldassar e Gabaccia, 2011; Uy-Tioco and Cabalquinto, 2020) and see in these new models of family and intimate relationships adaptive responses to the new demands of intense mobility that make the intimate and family dimensions more fluid, flexible, negotiable, modifiable, but certainly no less important (Jamieson, 2011; Sahlstein 2004; Upton-Davis, 2012). Whereas research on transnational families is now copious and consolidated within the sociological debate, still lacking, are more inclusive phenomenological accounts of long-term, long-distance couples and families characterised by high economic and cultural capital, whose family life is shaped by experiences of mobility where the geographical distance does not allow frequent encounters; in other words, accounts on the lived and felt experience of long-term, long-distance relationships and on the multiple meanings and implications of living apart together (LAT) in terms of daily, performative, family acts of citizenship (Isin, 2008). The different strategies enacted to create and maintain intimate relationships and their translation into tangible, daily family practices (Morgan, 2011) may help us understand how family bonds are constantly constructed and negotiated, shedding light on the multiple implications of such strategies for both the individuals and the larger societal fabric. Why more and more people “live apart together”? How do their family strategies and practices resonate with or take the distance from other more conventional family practices? To which extent do long-term, long-distance couples and families differ from conventional families? What can we learn from their everyday experiences and acts of family? What does their invisibility in family policy making involve? Drawing on a number of case studies of long-term, long-distance families, this contribution addresses the above-mentioned questions and provides a phenomenological portrait of unconventional family practices as well as a potential theoretical framework through which the several meanings and implications of LAT experiences may (or may not) find a common denominator. Understanding the lived experience of long-term, long-distance families can advance our knowledge of the changing nature of family relationships and provide some useful insights in the enduring gaps, absences and invisibilities in family policies. Shedding light on these gaps can help us to address them in terms of broader issues which are relevant for several other invisible families.