Gaining the upper hand: perspectives on asymmetries of transnational social support

International migration is often a quest for better life chances in other countries for individuals and their family members spread across manifold nation-states. There is ample evidence showing the importance of financial remittances sent by migrants for the daily lives of their families who are left behind in the countries of emigration. While migrants are conceptualized as being providers of financial support, in return, their family members usually in the countries of origin are pictured as being important in the lives of migrants mainly in terms of emotional support. Yet, social support exchanged across borders among persons who reside in various nation-states as well as the ways it is organized and negotiated are part of transnational social protection framework. Contextualizing social support exchanges informally among persons within the wider social structures of nation-states, this paper investigates how personal relationships are redefined through such exchanges. Because majority of the studies are conducted with migrants themselves, exchanges of social support tends to be evaluated only from the perspective of migrants. Based on qualitative interviews with Turkish migrants living in Germany (20) and their significant others in Turkey (10) through a matched sample, this paper investigates the evaluations of social support from both ends. In addition, based on the personal network analysis of the 30 respondents, this paper analyzes what is being exchanged with whom and how reciprocity works in this sample. Surprisingly, there is a mismatch in the eyes of the givers and the receivers of social support mostly about who has the upper hand and what the expectations are compared with the reality of social support exchanges. The paper also explains this mismatch split along gender and class lines