Care across Distance: Ethnographic Explorations of Aging and Migration(4 Life Course, Culture and Aging: Global Transformations)

World-wide migration has an unsettling effect on social structures, especially on aging populations and eldercare. This volume investigates how taken-for-granted roles are challenged, intergenerational relationships transformed, economic ties recalibrated, technological innovations utilized, and spiritual relations pursued and desired, and asks what it means to care at a distance and to age abroad. What it does show is that trans-nationalization of care produces unprecedented convergences of people, objects and spaces that challenge our assumptions about the who, how, and where of care.

Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations Ackknowledgments Introduction: Care Across Distance Monika Palmberger and Azra Hromadžić PART I: MATERIALITIES AND TECHNOLOGIES OF CARE ACROSS DISTANCE Chapter 1. Recalibrating Care: Newly Resettled Nepali-Bhutanese Refugees in Upstate New York Retika Desai Chapter 2. Healthy Aging, Middle-classness, and Transnational Care between Tanzania and the United States Andrea Patricia Kaiser-Grolimund PART II: SPIRITUALITY AND INTERGENERATIONAL CARE ACROSS DISTANCE Chapter 3. Intergenerational Relationships and Emergent Notions of Reciprocity, Dependency, Caregiving, and Aging in Tuareg Migration Susan Rasmussen Chapter 4. ‘Old People’s Homes’, Filial Piety, and Transnational Families: Change and Continuity in Elderly Care in the Tibetan Settlements in India Namgyal Choedup PART III: COMMUNITIES OF CARE ACROSS DISTANCE Chapter 5. Social Embeddedness and Care Among Turkish Labor Migrants in Vienna: The Role of Migrant Associations Monika Palmberger Chapter 6. Migrants of Privilege: American Retirees and the Imaginaries of Ecuadorian Care Work Ann Miles PART IV: FAILURES OF CARE ACROSS DISTANCE Chapter 7. Some Limits of Caring at a Distance: Aging and Transnational Care Arrangements between Suriname and the Netherlands Yvon Van der Pijl Chapter 8. “Where Were They Until Now?” Aging, Care and Abandonment in a Bosnian Town Azra Hromadžić Epilogue: Reflections on Care and Virtue Sarah Lamb Index

About the Author :
Azra Hromadžić is Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Syracuse University. She is the author of Citizens of an Empty Nation: Youth and State-making in Postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), which was recently translated into Serbian.

Review :
“The main strength of this volume is the authors’ analysis of care, and the myriad ways in which care is constructed, and reconstructed, by migrant older adults, their families and other actors. The collective conceptualisation of care is robust, moving beyond direct and family-oriented care, to also consider virtual and long-distance care, anonymous and contingent care, material care, relational and multi-directional care, and poignant examples of failed care…Drawing on rich stories from around the globe, this volume helps the reader ‘grasp’ the concept of care, specifically as it relates to ageing in the era of migration, and in doing so, makes a meaningful contribution to the literature.” • Ageing & Society “The hope is that this volume will be read widely, and these questions will be taken up by practitioners and researchers across Europe. Importantly, this includes the Nordic countries, where the role of increasingly privatised and outsourced healthcare systems in distributing vulnerabilities along racialised lines calls for urgent scrutiny and struggles.” • Nordic Journal of Migration Research “This ethnographically-rich and comparative volume is of importance for scholars of migration, ageing, and care. It should be accessible for upper-division undergraduate and graduate courses in these subjects.” • Anthropology & Aging “Overall, this volume offers valuable empirical and theoretical contributions to the anthropology of care and transnational families. It is highly recommended reading for students and scholars seeking insights into novel care practices and care relations in this fast-changing field.” • International Journal of Care and Caring “With its ethnographic exploration, the volume is a strong contribution to cross-cultural studies on the role of older adults within a rapidly globalizing world…The book is a must-read for researchers analyzing the process of aging as a transnational and (im)mobile phenomenon that is heterogeneously experienced across territory.” • Transfers “This is the book’s strength: it brings together a wide range of ethnographic cases, drawn from various global settings, where ageing unfolds in diverse migratory contexts and where care is differently embodied, enacted, and circulated…this ethnographically-rich and comparative volume is of importance for scholars of migration, ageing, and care. It should be accessible for upper-division undergraduate.” • Journal of Anthropology and Aging “The chapters are ethnographically rich, geographically diverse, and engaging. Collectively they offer a cutting-edge discussion of theory and method for analyzing how people care for their kin when migration has separated families.” • Michele Gamburd, Portland State University “This book convincingly demonstrates that care can be provided across distance, even as it may be transformed, and care relations re-negotiated… [it] is an important contribution to the growing literature on transnational aging, in providing detailed studies of its complex and multiple effects on individuals and families.” • Cati Coe, Rutgers University