Parcel-sending as a peri-pandemic and post-crisis strategy of creating mutable connections in Moldovan transnational life

This proposal aims to expand my thesis on parcel-sending by Moldovan transnational families between Moldova and the UK as embodiment of connections across borders to explore the strategies of navigating uncertainty caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and the Ukrainian refugee crisis. The focus of the proposed research is twofold: the adaptability of private parcel van companies as agents of migrant infrastructure (Xiang and Lindquist 2014) and the continuity of transnational practices embodied in parcel-sending as a form of social remittances (Levitt 1998, Levitt and Lamba-Nieves 2013) shared with Ukrainian refugees who are seen as extended family in times of crisis.

As my thesis showed, private parcel van companies have been key actors in Moldovan transnational life for thirty years and migrants have been using parcel-sending to keep in touch despite changes in their family histories. Their sending practices also employed time-mapping (Gell 1992) to incorporate major life events as temporal references (Munn 1992), helping transnational families make sense of the migration experience, elicit response to disruptive events, and readjust family strategies.

Recent press reports suggest that parcel-sending has been steadily increasing throughout the pandemic and lockdowns, pointing to the continuity of family practices across borders. Moreover, in response to the Ukraine crisis, Moldovan migrant networks have mobilised to provide support by redistributing resources, using parcel van companies' offers to transport refugee emergency aid for free.

These circumstances offer an important opportunity to investigate the role of material connections that represent 'mutable circulations' (Khrenova and Burrell 2021) of closeness and a continuation of migration narratives when home visits become disrupted.

In the past two years, transnational families have already employed Brexit and the pandemic as major temporal references in their migration histories. The post-Brexit period has seen migrants redefine their social strategies of dealing with changes (Morad, Della Puppa and Sacchetto 2020) and develop new strategies to negotiate hostile environments (Gawlewicz and Sotkasiira 2020), with more embedded migrants navigating risks better (Trabka and Pustulka 2020).

Furthermore, Covid-19 challenged migrants' sense of belonging and security, partially rooted in reliance on migrant networks (Gurung, Amburgey and Craig 2021), with suggestions that mobility itself may have become a source of uncertainty (Turaeva and Urinboyev 2021).

Still, parcel van companies continue to harness migrant networks, providing the flow of informal exchanges as a mutable, fluid practice implying 'real presence' (Khrenova and Burrell 2021:261). Moreover, evidence points to the emergence of 'pandemic transnationalism' (Galstyan and Galstyan 2021), a category of social remittances aimed to cope with the socio-economic effects of the pandemic and translating into the refugee crisis response in Moldova.

The full extent of the pandemic's impact and the implications of the Ukrainian conflict on transnational practices are yet to be understood, particularly as narratives of material exchanges uncover the 'importance of different temporalities' on personal history level and in wider societal contexts (Khrenova and Burrell 2021:261).

My thesis pointed to the persistence of parcel-sending practices, mediated by parcel van companies showing that, despite disruptive events, migrants continue to harness the mutual trust of informal networks. Therefore, the proposed research builds on the continuing evidence of the significance of migrant infrastructure, peri-pandemic negotiation of transnationalism and the latest indication that the Ukrainian refugee crisis offers an important context for investigating the role of social practices of staying connected across borders.