Call for Papers | Vol. 13, N.º 1 | Transnational Lives and Cultural Contexts | September 26 to November 30, 2025

2025-09-23

Editors: Emília Araújo (CECS, Universidade do Minho, Portugal), Carlos Barros (Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Portugal) & Mieke Schrooten (Odisee University of Applied Sciences/University of Antwerp, Bélgica)

As transnational families gain visibility in academic and policy debates, recent research highlights the need to deepen our understanding of what it means to be transnational and the long-term implications of such experiences (Budginaitė-Mačkinė et al., 2025). Scholars are increasingly examining not only the institutional fragilities of support systems but also the cultural contexts that shape these experiences (Barros & Hanenberg, 2024).

In a time of growing public and political uncertainty around migration and mobility, it is crucial to make visible the lived realities of transnational families—whose experiences of belonging, displacement, and care span geographically distinct locations (Bryceson, 2019; Doetsch et al., 2017; Guerra & Barros, 2025; Schrooten, 2021).

 

Aim of the Thematic Issue

This thematic issue invites contributions that explore how culture shapes experiences of displacement and mobility, and how transnationality and vulnerability are lived, narrated, negotiated, and resisted within transnational family networks. We welcome analyses of how variables such as gender, race, class, and citizenship intersect to produce layered forms of individual and familial precarity, and how institutions, media, and technologies mediate these experiences across borders, thereby constructing “cultures of vulnerability” with which families may or may not identify.

We also encourage critical reflections on the theoretical, methodological, and ethical challenges of researching transnational lives.

 

Suggested Topics

We invite interdisciplinary, empirically grounded, and theoretically engaged articles, particularly those that draw on Sociology, Communication, Psychology, Social Work, Anthropology and Migration Studies.

Suggested topics include:

1. Conceptual and Methodological Approaches

  • Theorising transnationality and vulnerability in cultural contexts
  • Methodological innovations in researching transnational family life
  • Ethical dilemmas in studying displacement and precarity across borders

2. Cultural Representations and Narratives

  • Cultural imaginaries of uncertainty, loss, and displacement
  • Diasporic memory, cultural citizenship, and practices of belonging
  • Family archives and visual storytelling of transnational vulnerability

3. Temporalities and Emotional Geographies

  • Waiting, endurance, and intergenerational care in transnational families
  • Temporal dimensions of trauma, healing, and resilience in migration
  • “Living time”: activism, resistance, and cultural expressions of endurance

4. Institutional and Structural Challenges

  • Professional mismatch, labour precarity, and identity negotiation
  • Transnational family life in times of crisis, disaster, or systemic breakdown
  • Navigating institutional fragilities: care, support, and legal frameworks

5. Media, Technology, and Future Imaginaries

  • Cross-border digital cultures and mediated family connections
  • Technologies of care and surveillance in transnational contexts
  • Imagining futures: aspirations, mobility, and cultural resistance
  • Theories and methods on transnationality and vulnerability

 

References

Barros, C., & Hanenberg, P. (2024). An integral approach to well-being in transnational families: A brief proposal for best practices. Social Sciences, 13(3), 131. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci13030131.

Bryceson, D. F. (2019). Transnational families negotiating migration and care life cycles across nation-state borders. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 45(16), 3042–3064. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2018.1547017

Budginaitė-Mačkinė, I., Albert, I., Schrooten, M., Stanojević, D., & Wojtyńska, A. (2025). Defining transnational families across countries and time: An analysis of academic discourse on the phenomenon between 2003 and 2023. Journal of Family Studies, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/13229400.2024.2449103

Doetsch, J., Pilot, E., Santana, P., & Krafft, T. (2017). Potential barriers in healthcare access of the elderly population influenced by the economic crisis and the troika agreement: A qualitative case study in Lisbon, Portugal. International Journal for Equity in Health, 16, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-017-0679-7

Guerra, I. & Barros, C. (2025). Care: New challenges arising from transnational dynamics. Social Work Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/02615479.2025.2525992

Schrooten, M. (2021). Transnational social work: Challenging and crossing borders and boundaries. Journal of Social Work, 21(5), 1163–1181. https://doi.org/10.1177/146801732094938

 

Submission of full manuscripts: from September 26 to November 30, 2025

 

LANGUAGE

The manuscripts may be submitted in English or Portuguese. Papers selected for publication will be translated into Portuguese or English and must be published in both languages.

 

EDITING AND SUBMISSION

Lusophone Journal of Cultural Studies is an open-access academic journal that adheres to the stringent standards of peer-reviewing and blind peer-reviewing. After submission, each paper will be distributed to two reviewers, who have previously been invited to evaluate it according to its academic quality, originality, and relevance to the objectives and scope of the theme of this issue of the journal.

Original articles are submitted on the journal's website at (https://www.rlec.pt/). When submitting for the first time to the Lusophone Journal of Cultural Studies, please register here).

The guidelines for authors are available here.

For further information, please contact: rlec@ics.uminho.pt