"In our highly interconnected and globalized world, people often pursue their aspirations in multiple places. Yet in public and scholarly debates, aspirations are often seen as the realm of younger, mobile generations, since they are assumed to hold the greatest potential for shaping the future. This volume flips this perspective on its head by exploring how aspirations are constructed from the vantage point of later life, and shows how they are pursued across time, space, and generations. The aspirations of older people are diverse, and relate not only to aging itself but also to planning the next generation's future, preparing an ""ideal"" retirement, searching for intimacy and self-realization, and confronting death and afterlives. Aspiring in Later Life brings together rich ethnographic cases from different regions of the world, offering original insights into how aspirations shift over the course of life and how they are pursued in contexts of translocal mobility.
This book is also freely available online as an open-access digital edition.?
Download the open access book here."
Contributions by:
Dumitrita Lunca,
Lisa Johnson
Edited by:
Megha Amrith,
Victoria K. Sakti,
Dora Sampaio
Imprint: Rutgers University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 235mm,
Width: 156mm,
Spine: 13mm
Weight: 45g
ISBN: 9781978830400
ISBN 10: 1978830408
Pages: 204
Publication Date: 05 September 2023
Recommended Age: From 18 to 99 years
Audience:
College/higher education
,
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Primary
,
Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Introduction 1 Megha Amrith, Victoria K. Sakti, and Dora Sampaio PA R T I Desire and Self-Realization 1 Growing Old Hand in Hand: Aspirations of Romantic Love in Later Life among Romanian Transmigrants in Rome Dumitrița Luncă 2 Letting Go and Looking Ahead: The Aspirations of Middle-Aged Migrant Domestic Workers in Singapore and Hong Kong Megha Amrith 3 Aspirational Movements: Later-Life Mobility as a Female Resource to Age Well Lisa Johnson PA R T I I Intergenerational Negotiations 4 Aspiring to Retire: Intergenerational Care in a Ghanaian Transnational Family Cati Coe 5 Between Aging Parents There and Young Children Here: The Aspirations of Late-Middle-Aged Peruvian Migrants in Santiago as a Transnational Sandwich Generation Alfonso Otaegui 6 Whose Aspirations? Intergenerational Expectations and Hopes in Eastern Uganda Susan Reynolds Whyte PA RT I I I Living in the Present 7 Before It Ends: Aging, Gender, and Migration in a Transnational Mexican Community Julia Pauli 8 Disrupted Futures: The Shifting Aspirations of Older Cameroonians Living in Displacement Nele Wolter 9 “Setting Off from the Mountain Pass”: Facing Death and Preparing for the Journey Ahead in Tibetan Exile Harmandeep Kaur Gill Afterword Erdmute Alber Acknowledgments Contributors Index
"MEGHA AMRITH leads the ""Ageing in a Time of Mobility"" research group at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Göttingen, Germany. She is the author of Caring for Strangers: Filipino Medical Workers in Asia and co-editor of the volume Gender, Work, and Migration. VICTORIA KUMALA SAKTI is a postdoctoral researcher in the ""Ageing in a Time of Mobility"" research group at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Göttingen, Germany. This is her first book. DORA SAMPAIO is an assistant professor in the Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Utrecht University, The Netherlands. She is the author of Migration, Diversity and Inequality in Later Life: Ageing at a Crossroads. "
Reviews for Aspiring in Later Life: Movements across Time, Space, and Generations
"""A welcome addition to the study of migration and aging, this volume explores ambition, intimacy, and other aspirations as elders envision a good life and craft new vistas in later years. Ethnographically vivid fieldwork draws the reader into the uncertainties and elations of intergenerational households of transmigrants, returnees, and refugees."" — Michele Ruth Gamburd, author of Linked Lives: Elder Care, Migration, and Kinship in Sri Lanka “This important volume advances the idea that people do have aspirations all through the life course and that we need to know more about their thoughts, choices, and how they dynamically engage with cultural scripts about aging."" — Sherylyn Briller, professor of anthropology at Purdue University"
