Family Upheaval

Mikkel Rytter is Assistant Professor in the Department of Culture and Society at Aarhus University where he is affiliated with the research program on contemporary ethnography and part of a cross-disciplinary project on Sufism and Transnational spirituality.

“This book improves understandings of family dynamics within a context transformed by international migration and sheds light on transformations within the migrant family... it is a valuable source for scholars working on the interaction between migration processes and family paths... [and] also appeals to policy makers interested in understanding the local impact of global events." · International Migration Review“The book will be of great interest not only to anthropologists of South Asian diasporas but also to the growing and interdisciplinary field of family and marriage migration scholars who are attuned to the tremendous and contradictory powers of nation-states to (re-)shape families and other intimate relations.” · The Nordic Journal of Migration Research (NJMR)“…a substantial contribution to migration studies and anthropology in its own right in providing a refreshing, unconventional, approach to Pakistani migrants in the transnational space of Denmark, Pakistan and Sweden, which in the light of the gross simplifications and stereotypization in the public Danish news media, provides a humanization of the many responses and strategies to Pakistani-Danish family upheaval, but the book also contributes with a comprehensive, high-quality case study of Pakistani migrants in the Nordic countries, which has been almost entirely absent in English until now.” · Peter Hervik, Malmö University“…the book will make a valuable contribution and command a wide readership with an interest in Muslim and immigrant populations in Europe, in anthropology, sociology and migration studies.” · Pnina Werbner, Keele University“This book delivers on its promise. It skillfully locates the upheavals currently being experienced in Danish Pakistani family life in the context of the Danish nation-state's governance of Muslim immigrants, the post 9/11 securitisation and the corresponding insecurities for migrants.” · Alison Shaw, Oxford University

• PrefaceChapter 1. IntroductionPART I: HISTORIESChapter 2. Macro-perspectives: the usual suspectsChapter 3. Micro-perspectives: contested notions of improvementsPART II: MARRIAGESChapter 4. Between preferences: love marriages as symbolic mobilityChapter 5. Welfare-state nomads in the borderlands of Sweden and DenmarkChapter 6. ‘The Danish family’ and ‘the aliens’PART III: HOMELANDSChapter 7. Pakistan-Denmark: back and forthChapter 8. An imagined return: negotiations of identity and belongingChapter 9. The Kashmir earthquake: dynamics of intensive transnationalismPART IV: AFFLICTIONSChapter 10. In-laws and outlaws: suspicions of local and transnational sorceryChapter 11. Demonic migrations: the re-enchantment of middle-class lifeChapter 12. Conclusion: family upheavalReferencesGlossary