The flows of love

This article analyses, from a transactional perspective, how West African retirees living in France maintained their marital and parental ties from a distance during their working lives. Based on 22 biographical interviews conducted between 2017 and 2022, and on an analysis using sociological portraits, it shows that family continuity depends not only on digital technologies, but also on a set of situated adjustments. The analysis highlights three dimensions: professional arrangements that enable temporary absences; digital scripts and family mediations that organize remote presence; and the flows of money and goods that fulfil expected obligations and expressions of recognition. Digital technology thus emerges as a means of regulating distance, under the constraints of work, resources, gender and mobility.