Transnational grandparenting in the digital age: mediated co-presence and childcare in the case of Romanian migrants in Switzerland and Canada

Taking transnational families of Romanian migrants in Canada and Switzerland as a case in point, this paper accounts for the emergence of new patterns of “grandparenting” and “doing family” practices in the digital age, based on ICTs-mediated co-presence. It shows that migrants’ parents are able to acquire manifold technological skills in order to cope with distance and separation and to improve the quality of their interaction and relationships with children and grandchildren living abroad. Ordinary co-presence routines within polymedia environments allow grandparents to take on their role as childcare providers across borders and develop new transnational lifestyles. Thus, despite contrasting feelings of well-being and distress that mediated co-presence generates, migrants’ parents are able to place themselves as key actors within the transnational family in the digital society and invent new grandparenting practices.