Paper short abstract:

This paper shows that aging in the city of Zanzibar is embedded in transnational care spaces, whereby elderly people understand 'good' aging as a narrow path of agency between acceptance and resistance of bodily, mental and social changes to which they find cosmopolitan answers.

Paper long abstract:

Over the past centuries, a transcultural space has been created between urban Zanzibar and Oman through political expansion and an exchange of goods, people and ideas resulting in dense networks across the Indian Ocean. What happens if moral aspects of aging, agency and care are negotiated in a city and over national boarders in a cosmopolitan and transnational environment? Cosmopolitan moralities become visible in the aging process, especially once elderly people become ill or frail and are confronted with the finiteness of life. Based on seventeen months of multi-sited ethnographic research in the city of Zanzibar and Muscat, this paper analyses ideas of 'good' aging and caregiving from the perspective of elderly Zanzibari, as well as their relatives and acquaintances within these transcultural and transnational networks. It argues that we can observe a crystallization of cosmopolitan moralities in two aspects: First, when we look at how elderly Zanzibari deal with situations in which they experience frailty, serious health problems or disablement and second, in their agentic negotiation of caregiving. These cosmopolitan moralities are negotiated during regular and long visits, frequent calls, the sending of gifts, medications and money through visitors or specialized companies and when organizing medical treatments for major health issues. The findings of this paper show that aging in the city of Zanzibar is embedded in a crystallization of moralities, whereby elderly people understand 'good' aging as a narrow path of agency between acceptance and resistance of bodily, mental and social changes to which they find cosmopolitan answers.

Paper short abstract:

This qualitative paper explores the interplay between urban and rural migration in South Africa and older adults’ receipt of and attitudes towards long term care. I discuss the implications of their experiences for the expected increase in unmet need for care and the development of care systems.

Paper long abstract:

For South Africa's older black population, internal migration and dispersal of families between rural and urban areas is not a new phenomenon. Restrictive legislation constrained where many lived in their youth, often forcing urban to rural migration, while the late 1980s saw rapid unplanned urbanisation around formerly White towns and cities. With unemployment now at 40% among younger black adults, economic migration is also common among their children and grandchildren. As more people grow old in both urban and rural South Africa than ever before, with and without co-resident family, increasing policy attention is being given to how need for care in older age will be met.

This paper considers the influence of migration on receipt of long term care for older adults with functional disability. It draws on data from two focus group and 70 in-depth interviews with a diverse sample of black older men and women and their families in urban, peri-urban and rural South Africa. Participants include older adults receiving formal (home-based, day-, residential) care and family care, as well as those called on to provide care. The paper explores who provides care - and who is expected to provide care - when family are employed elsewhere, and when they are not. It additionally explores the role of formal support and older adults' preferences for care. A key finding is that discourses around migration and older adults 'left behind', the inappropriateness of 'Western' formal care and the quality of family care do not accurate represent older South Africans' experiences.

Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses new housing alternatives for older people in two different African countries. The research indicates that although the state may be an important provider of housing for elderly, non-governmental initiatives are stronger in the country where the state is weaker.

Paper long abstract:

While older people usually arrange their own housing, urbanization and changing family patterns in Africa call for housing alternatives for this potentially vulnerable group. The state, the church, NGOs and private initiatives all play a role in the provision of housing for this group. Our paper builds on a comparative qualitative study of urban ageing in Uganda and Namibia.

Preliminary results show that in the case of Uganda where public welfare provision is weak, the non-state actors such as the church, NGOs and the family is of greater importance than in Namibia where there is a small, albeit important, welfare provision. In the latter, collective housing in the form of old age homes are publicly provided while the non-state initiative is weaker. Results also indicate that innovations develop within the informal sector, for instance housing for grandmothers who care for grandchildren orphaned by HIV, provided by an NGO in Uganda. There is a difference in housing provision for older people who live in a family context or if they lack such a belonging. Family provided housing includes separate housing units for grandparents and their grandchildren. The church in Uganda targets older people without family support in collective housing akin to old age homes.

In conclusion we argue that the state is of great importance to the provision of housing for older people. However, it could not be the sole provider and it seems as state provision might curb informal initiatives. The state could shoulder the role of supporting these initiatives.

Paper short abstract:

The study of age(ing) in East African pastoralist societies has mainly been confined to structures of 'age-set systems'. In this study I seek to explore ageing outside of the age-set systems by focusing more on individual life histories and, generally, shared narratives on the process of ageing.

Paper long abstract:

The study of age(ing) in East African pastoralist societies has mainly been confined to structures of 'age-set systems'. In this study I seek to explore ageing outside of the age-set systems by focusing more on individual life histories and, generally, shared narratives on the process of ageing. The central transformation that I will examine here is a shift away from age-set system as the key site of aging to the changing concepts of aging by focusing on local relationships between elders and 'youth' with specific attention to livestock herding among the Boran of northern Kenya. In the 'traditional' setting, certain age grades are tasked with the responsibility of herding; in the context of urbanization and general social change, education, white collar jobs and odd jobs in the towns are competing with the more traditional livestock rearing for youthful labour. With a youth that is apparently disenchanted with livestock herding and who are more attracted to white collar jobs and urban lifestyle and elders who are steeped in 'tradition' and embedded in livestock production, how is the relationship between the two groups being reconfigured? In responding to this foundational question, I seek to tease out the general changes in the age-set systems and the process of ageing through a life-course approach. I draw on archival material, Life history interviews, participant observation in the villages, grazing areas and Marsabit town in this study. I argue that the continued reliance and romanticisation of age-set systems tends to gloss over fundamental social and demographic changes as far as aging is concerned.