Justice and the Family in a Transnational Perspective

Paper delivered at the “Societas Ethica” Annual Conference on “Ethics and Migration”, 23rd-26th August 2012, Sibiu – Romania Contemporary theories of justice have only recently begun to take notice of international and global contexts and their implications. From a global perspective, it has also become necessary to revisit the old issue of family and justice – addressing, first and foremost, the current reality of “transnational” families. Such families challenge traditional models in order to meet their own, new subsistence needs. Today, millions of women travel and migrate alone to find jobs in the ever-expanding market of the personal services and care sector. Family members may thus grow up and live in two or more different countries, fragmented, so to speak, and separated from one another most of the time. For these female migrant workers, new and old issues arise, as they endeavour to strike a balance between old family ties and the obligations imposed by new forms of employment. Some of these issues are: gender equality, the tension between equality of opportunity, work, and family ties, the new character of old class, gender and ethnic inequalities, and so on. As the line between “rich” and “poor” countries is being re-drawn, both care labour commodification and its ethnic, gender and class distribution change accordingly, assuming new and unexpected forms, which we will try to analyse.