Living Together Across Borders

Living Together Across Borders tells the stories of extended families living stretched between a rural Salvadoran village and the urban locations in the United States where their migrant relatives live. It focuses on their cross-border conversations, demonstrating that this communication is a vital resource for enacting care-at-a-distance. The book examines seemingly mundane interactions including greetings, remittance negotiations, and reminiscing together. It demonstrates that while these practices are distributed in ways that can reinforce boundaries between migrant and non-migrant relatives, families simultaneously use these same practices to build convivencia (living-together) despite ongoing separation.

A teaching guide is now available for Living Together Across Borders. The guide includes key terms and discussion questions for large and small groups for every chapter.

Download here:

Arnold_Teaching guide_revised.pdf

Arnold writes with captivating clarity about the creative and persistent ways transnational families enact intergenerational relationships of love and obligation. In a global capitalist context that displaces millions, these are hopeful examples of how to use communication to nurture kinship and care from a distance.”

Dr. Leisy J. Abrego University of California, Los Angeles

With affection, ethnographic sensibility, and theoretical grace, Arnold documents how migrants and their relatives back home keep connections alive through conversation. And in the process, she shows how language is integral to kinship and care.”

Dr. Jessaca B. Leinaweaver Brown University

Arnold demonstrates how transnational care is realized, as Salvadoran families find ways to ‘live-together-at-a-distance’ through an array of communicative practices. Working between linguistic and medical anthropology, this book sheds light on broader questions of migration, kinship, and how people manage the global inequities of transnational family life.”

Dr. E. Summerson Carr University of Chicago