Maintaining Ties and Reaffirming Unity: Family Rituals in the Age of Migration

Abstract

This ethnographic study examines the forms and functions of ritualizing in migrant families, using Chinese rural-urban migrant workers’ annual Spring Festival family reunions as a case study. In-depth interviews with migrant workers and participant observations of family reunions in rural China reveal that both celebratory and non-celebratory family activities are ritualized. In particular, the study suggests that the Spring Festival family reunion has transformed into a meta-ritual comprised of five categories of ritual activities: festival rituals, reunion rituals, patterned interactions, reunions with friends, and communal rituals. These rituals constitute both the internal and external identities of migrant families, but may also remind them of the traumatic reality of family separation or trigger hidden tensions within the family. Implications for studying family communication in times of mobility and family diversity are discussed.

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