TRANSNATIONALITY AS A PERSPECTIVE ON RESEARCH ON FAMILY CONSEQUENCES OF MIGRATION (Tozsamosc rodzinna 'ponad granicami' w swietle koncepcji transnarodowej przestrzeni spolecznej )

Contemporary mobility in the world is usually temporary, circulatory. Due to this fact, a transnational social space has been formed. Te space is a composition of constantly sustained contacts of social and symbolic type. According to Tomas Faist, concepts such as transnational social spaces, transnational social fields or transnational social formations refer to the ties between geographically mobile people, nets and organizations placed across the borders of many countries. Within it, relations and transnational family ties occur - though not in place, but in space. Transnational social space goes beyond geographical boundaries, between which people migrate. Within this space, there are to be found the families which are geographically separated because of foreign migration of their members. I consider transnationality to be a process in which immigrants create and maintain diversified contacts while they function in at least two countries. In such families one or both parents, adult children as well as other members of extended families work abroad, while the remaining members of a family realize its functions and consume in their country of origin. A lot of families, consequently, function 'beyond geographical boundaries'. I consider such families - physically separated - an example of one of the forms of family life in the postmodern world.