Relative Distance: Kinship, Migration, and Christianity between Kenya and the United Kingdom

Relative distance is a multi-sited ethnography of transnational kinship between Kenya and the United Kingdom. Rather than focusing on structural explanations like changing modes of economic production, ‘push-pull’ factors, and globalization as drivers of familial change and transformation, Leslie Fesenmyer focuses on the micro-spaces of transnational familial life, revealing how, through quotidian interactions, exchanges, and practices, those who move and those who stay contribute to the ongoing transformation of kinship. She argues that the distance – physical, social, and phenomenological – migration generates between kin is where they express and negotiate what being related entails. In asking who is responsible for whom, the book reveals how questions of care and responsibility are not only family matters, but are also central to relations between individuals, societies, and states.