Cook it,eat it,Skype it: Mobile media use in re-staging intimate culinary practices among transnational families

Abstract

This article discusses video-based platforms as drivers of transconnective spaces for transnational families to do familyhood. By looking at how Italians living in London use Skype to re-stage family rituals at a distance, I examine the centrality of culinary practices in relation to family work. In doing this, I also expand on the role of polymedia environments in enabling emotional proximity and the formation of a sense of mediated co-presence within transnational contexts. In-depth interviews were conducted with members of the Facebook group Italian Gals in London to unpack how lived geographies of migration intersect with media technologies and practices to create a new transconnective habitus around food preparation, cooking and dining. The study reveals that while Skype provides emotional connectivity, communicative challenges and tensions can also occur as a result of the ‘ephemerality’ of video calls and as technological asymmetries emerge among transnational family members.