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- Convenors:
-
Gabriella Nilsson
(Lund University)
Anne Leonora Blaakilde (Roskilde University)
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- Stream:
- Migration
- Location:
- ZHG 004
- Start time:
- 28 March, 2017 at
Time zone: Europe/Berlin
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
The panel addresses the challenges of ageing Europe from a focus on mobility, dwelling and care. What implications do care regimes have for senior migrants - and their options of staying or returning "home"? What are the meanings and motivations of dwelling and mobility in a migration context?
Long Abstract:
This panel addresses the challenges of Ageing Europe from a focus on migration, dwelling, welfare and care. The idea of eventually returning "home" is recurrent in migration narratives. This poses challenges concerning the sense of home, family ties and sources for support. In lives marked by migration, considerations of care needs related to frailty, illness and death are salient. However, 'care' seems to be a phenomenon related to dwelling and not to mobility; care provisions appear to be dependent on steady relationships, whether of family relations or of a longer and recognized membership of a specific welfare state.
In what ways do consideration of care needs and death become facilitators and barriers, strategies, motivations and meanings in decisions of dwelling and mobility? What implications do care and migration regimes have for senior migrants - and their options and constraints of staying and returning "home"? Who is in charge of caring responsibilities when dwelling has shifted during the life course, and when traditions have changed? What happens to the rights and obligations of seniors who live "in between" countries - but within the EU? What is the situation for senior migrants, who find themselves to be in need of care, but in lack of both family and welfare state?
The panel welcomes papers that draw attention to the need to rethink national care regimes. Papers are also invited that explore the complex individual meanings, motivations and experiences of dwelling and mobility in a migration context, particularly considering care and death.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Gabriella Nilsson (Lund University)
Paper short abstract:
An increasing stream of Swedish third age retirees are migrating to Southern Europe. When in the fourth age many of them consider returning to Sweden. What cultural meanings do they attribute to the return process? What are the implications of return migration within a discourse of “active ageing”?
Paper long abstract:
An increasing stream of Swedish retirees are migrating seasonally or permanently to Southern Europe. This rise of intra- European retirement migration has largely been attributed to increased life expectancy, early retirement, greater affluence and previous tourism experiences among third age retirees. The number of retirement migrants is increasing, especially as the "baby boom" generation born in the 1940s is retiring. The choices of third age retirement migrants can be understood in the context of altogether dominating discursive ideals of "active ageing", enjoining seniors to be healthier and more active than previous generations before them. Increased mobility is a central aspect in this anti-ageing discourse. However, when retirement migrants reach the fourth age many of them consider, or actualize, return migration to Sweden. There are a number of structural reasons why retirement migrants do not stay abroad beyond the fourth age, such as family concerns, health status, or economic constraints. The aim of this paper is however to explore the cultural meanings, motivations and consequences of return migration. How can we understand the different motives, opportunities and constraints, of senior migrants when they face decisions about staying or returning? What meanings do senior migrants attribute to the return process? What are the cultural implications of return migration within a discourse that idealizes elderly who remain in the third age by staying healthy, active and mobile? How is the idea of "returning" understood by retirement migrants to whom "moving away" have become a central part of their identity as retirees?
Marwa Bakabas (America University of Beirut)
Paper short abstract:
My research addresses the challenges of migration and care amongst senior migrants in settlements and transit camps. I examine the forms of care available to migrants and provide a framework of information to legislators and the public in order to improve access to resources for vulnerable groups.
Paper long abstract:
This winter I plan to conduct field work for the second time in Greece, where I will assess standards of care in an 'in between' EU country. My first visit was on the northern shores of Lesvos Island, responding to arrivals. I was able to build an understanding of how inconsistent access to health care can have a negative impact on vulnerable individuals, which included seniors. They are disproportionally impacted by weather, overexertion, and are often travelling with previous health concerns. Given the current situation, in which the borders of the EU are closed to land migration and the majority of new migrants are living in camps that have been haphazardly constructed by NGOs and independent volunteers which have now become government controlled, it is crucial to evaluate the resources available to migrants living in these camps, and to assess what concerns are ignored and what modalities of care are inaccessible. By doing so, we can examine the logic, intent and organization of the response to health concerns, between the NGOs handing over to the government of Greece and the departure of several volunteer-led organizations. Speaking with the beneficiaries is critical for a more humane examination of what they receive, desire, and expect from care-providers. The voices of those seeking care are central because it allows us, as respondents, to hear what needs they have beyond simply physical and to create a line of open communication between aid-providers, government officials and care recipients.
Hürrem Tezcan-Güntekin (Alice Salomon Hochschule Berlin) Yudit Namer (Bielefeld University)
Paper short abstract:
Most of the guest workers came to Germany as a result of binational recruitment agreements choose a transnational lifestyle in old age. This lifestyle often can´t be continued due to a dementia disease. The project focused on heterogeneous living arrangements of Turkish people with dementia.
Paper long abstract:
Guest workers came to Germany as a result of binational recruitment agreements in order to work for a few years and they were expected to return to their home country. Most of this migrants decided to spend their lives in Germany or chose a transnational lifestyle between their host and home countries. These individuals are getting older and their probability of being in need of care rises. This leaves them with the choice of staying in the host country or returning to their country of origin in the face of decreasing mobility-competencies.
With a qualitative approach, interviews with family caregivers of Turkish people with dementia who pursued/pursues a transnational life are conducted. The interviews are analyzed with the hermeneutic method of Documentary Method (Bohnsack 2003). The study asks how a transnational lifestyle is experienced by Turkish migrants with dementia and how the decision is reached regarding which country the person with dementia will continue living in when the disease progresses and travelling becomes more difficult. The presentation explores how the living environment in the home and the host countries is arranged and how the sense of home and allegiance is constituted by/for Turkish migrants with dementia. Possible implications for the constitution of individual living arrangements, social life and nursing care system will be pointed out.
Bohnsack, Ralf (2003): Rekonstruktive Sozialforschung. Opladen: Leske & Budrich.
Anne Leonora Blaakilde (Roskilde University)
Paper short abstract:
Provision of care is dependent on ’dwelling’ in a temporal and/or spatial perspective; lifelong family relations or membership of a demarcated nation state. Departing from three elderly person´s stories, I will discuss what can happen when care needs occur in the lives of people who have migrated.
Paper long abstract:
Migrants are mostly configured as young, male immigrants or families with children. However, elderly people do move and migrate as well, or younger migrants grow older and eventually face a life in frailty and need of care. Among the global migrant population, the proportion of older persons is significant, constituting 12,5% of all migrants in 2015 (UN 2015). As any other population group, this group is signified by vast diversity considering values and traditions, living conditions and arrangements, social situations, health status etc.
Provision of care seems in many cases to be dependent on 'dwelling' in a temporal and/or spatial perspective, pointing to lifelong family relations or a formal membership of a demarcated nation state with certain welfare benefits. What happens when care needs occur in the lives of people who have moved or migrated, and who have not established - or have lost - the necessary relations of temporal and spatial kind? I will present three migrants with three different histories concerning care needs in later life. One is a Danish woman who migrated to Spain, the second is an Iranian woman who migrated to Denmark, and the third is a (supposedly) stateless man from Russia who ended his life in Denmark. In what ways did mobility and dwelling influence the care relations by the end of their lives?
United Nations 2015. International Migration 2015. Dept. of Economic and Social Affairs Population Division. http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/publications/wallchart/docs/MigrationWallChart2015.pdf