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- Convenor:
-
Marta Scaglioni
(Cà Foscari University of Venice)
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- Discussant:
-
Giovanna Santanera
(Università di Milano Bicocca)
- Stream:
- Social Anthropology
- Location:
- Appleton Tower, Seminar Room 2.07
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 12 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
The panel addresses the predicaments, experiences, and late-age plans of African migrants. It wishes to delve into issues such as generational gaps, changing social roles within the diasporas, and access to institutional facilities and welfare programs, through diverse methodological approaches.
Long Abstract:
The fact that Africa is a demographically young continent, and that during the last two decades millions of African youths have trod the 'back road' of irregular migrations, has diverted public and scholarly attention from the predicament of the elderly generations of African migrants. Return to the home country is an expectation both for the migrants and for their host-contexts, even when the former have the benefits of citizenship. Yet, resettling in Africa in the late part of life is not always a viable option. Health access is an issue. The material and social investments made in the home country during the time spent abroad are another one. They must be consistent so as to grant the recognition that stems from being an elderly person able to care for himself/herself and for others as well: elderly brothers and sisters, friends and the many unemployed kin and kindred that are part of today African social landscapes. This panel addresses the experience of ageing in the diaspora, through the analysis of process of renegotiation of the social role of elderly people, gaps between generations of migrants, and changing life-span trajectories. It welcomes contributions on care within migrations, access to institutional facilities and to welfare programs for elderly African migrants in host-contexts and home-countries, return projects or late-age plans. We wish to gather diverse methodological approaches, such as life course perspectives, oral history, ethnographic accounts, historical and cross-cultural comparative studies.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 12 June, 2019, -Paper short abstract:
By focusing on the life trajectories of people of Eritrean origin who migrated in Milan (Italy) in the 1960s and 1970s, this paper explores how multiple models of aging are elaborated, contrasted and renegotiated according to class, gender, and political positions in a diasporic context.
Paper long abstract:
Migrants from Eritrea constitute one of the oldest African communities in Italy, with a visible and significative presence in Milan. Many of those who arrived in 1960s and 1970s, to work, study or flee the war, have built their own life and working trajectories maintaining links between Eritrea and their host country for more than forty years, in very different ways according to their economic and social conditions and with very different results. As they approach or have entered retirement, some of them can enjoy the satisfaction of having achieved the goals they set for themselves and the expectations that were cast upon them by their network of social relations, whilst others look at their past as a failed opportunity and feel unable to meet the socially and culturally constructed criteria of 'good aging' and 'successful elderhood' that constitute dominant models. By focusing on their life trajectories, on the economic and social capital they can mobilise, and the many struggles they face as elderly people in Milan, this paper explores how multiple models of aging are elaborated, contrasted and renegotiated according to class, gender, and political positions.
Paper short abstract:
Although they are often represented as workers or young families, several Egyptian migrants in Milan decide to spend their old age in Italy. Institutionally and socially fragile, some of them resort to informal care networks within the diaspora itself, posing several challenges to it.
Paper long abstract:
In spite of their initial plans of returning to their home country after a life of work in Italy, a consistent number of Egyptian migrants decide to spend in Italy the last part of their lives, accessing the Italian retirement system. Most of them are located in Northern Italy, with a high concentration in Milan and surroundings. Contrary to the prevalent representation of migrants as professionally active, therefore, increasingly more Egyptians are in need of care and of the welfare system, such as retirement, unemployment, and invalidity subsidies. At the conjuncture with the economic slowdown and with the retrenchment of welfare in Italy, most ageing Egyptian migrants belong to the more vulnerable strata of society, posing several challenges to the informal network of care and care-giving within the diaspora itself.
Based on fresh ethnographic material, this contribution aims to unpack local constructions of age, ageing, successful ageing, and care from the emic perspective of the elderly community of Egyptians in Milan, keeping an eye at how these meanings are contextually negotiated during their migration experience. The experiences of these individuals will be intersected with the general legal and institutional framework they are embedded in, and with the points of view of younger generations and care-givers within the Egyptian diaspora itself, with a geographical focus on the city of Milan.
Paper short abstract:
Migration, Apport pour les pays d'acceuils, intérêts pour les pays d'origine, Gouvernance de la migration, respect et protection des droits humains
Paper long abstract:
la population malienne vivant à l'étranger à 4 millions de personnes dont 3,5 millions en Afrique et le reste reparti entre l'Europe et les Amériques.1
Au-delà de ses apports multiformes au développement socioéconomique du pays, la diaspora malienne se caractérise également par la nature de ses relations avec le pays d'origine. Selon les statistiques de la Banque Mondiale et de la Banque Africaine de Développement (BAD), les transferts de fonds des migrants maliens dépassent annuellement quatre cents milliards (400 000 000 0000) de francs CFA. Etant entendu que les montants transférés de façon informelle représentent 60% des transferts selon la BAD en 2009. A cette manne financière qui sert pour l'essentiel à l'entretien des familles, à la mise en place d'infrastructures de base dans les localités d'origine et dans une moindre mesure à l'investissement productif ; il faut ajouter l'intervention de la diaspora intellectuelle dans le processus du développement de notre pays.
En dépit de ses aspects positifs, il est important de signaler que la migration reste un défi majeur pour le Mali. Et ce, au regard des nombreux drames liés à la migration irrégulière. En 2015, les services du Ministère des Maliens de l'Extérieur ont enregistré trois cents soixante-seize (376) cas de jeunes maliens morts noyés dans la Méditerranée. Il va sans dire ainsi que la gestion de la migration est une priorité pour les plus hautes autorités de notre pays.