Reconciling emotional caregiving and self-fulfilment: Peruvian migrants in Switzerland supporting parents in Peru

Abstract

This article explores filial transnational caregiving from a subjective and emotional perspective. It analyses the relationship between pursuit of personal fulfilment and concern for parental well-being among Peruvian migrants in Switzerland whose parents remain in Peru. Based on in-depth interviews, we analyse the importance assigned to personal goals, the resignification of filial obligations, and how migrants reconcile the desire to be a ‘good’ son or daughter with the desire for self-fulfilment. This process, strongly shaped by gender and social class, involves the negotiation of distinct principles of autonomy and filial obligation prevailing in the country of origin and destination. Turning our attention to less explored emotions, such as pride and a sense of fulfilment, we show how to deal with principles that may be in tension, migrant children construe the pursuit of self-fulfilment and the desire to accomplish family responsibilities as interdependent dynamics in the context of filial transnational caregiving.