Absence, Kinship and Value in Migrant Ghana

This presentation considers absence as a site of social and affective tensions in Ghanaian rural-urban migration. Focusing on a family of six siblings who have all migrated and their ageing parents who stayed put, it traces the family’s relations over time and distances to show how absence intersects with valuations of kinship in unexpected ways, while creating new dynamics and dilemmas around longing, belonging and social viability.