(Re)tracing pre-pandemic connections: immaterial materialities of parcel-sending and visits home in Moldovan transnational families

This article discusses the elusive materiality of staying connected across borders. Objects brought in suitcases during visits home, images of objects sent via private parcel vans, and objects talked about but never sent all embody this connection. Using the concepts of trace and propinquity to presence the departed migrant and the objects used in family practices, I discuss relational proximity in degrees of nearness, considering seemingly immaterial traces of people and objects in material terms. Drawing on ethnographic examples of Moldovan private parcel van service users, I show how progressively immaterial transnational connections forged before the COVID-19 pandemic continued to create relations even in the absence of visits home during lockdowns.