This is an ethnographic account of the transnational caregiving experiences and practices of Australian migrants and refugees, caring for their elderly parents in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and New Zealand. It describes how people respond to unprecedented mobility (both voluntary and forced), globalized job markets and an ageing population.

Without denying the difficulties that confront migrants and their distant kin, this volume highlights the agency of family members in transnational processes of care, in an effort to acknowledge the transnational family as an increasingly common family form and to question the predominantly negative conceptualisations of this type of family. It re-conceptualises transnational care as a set of activities that circulates between home and host countries - across generations - and fluctuates over the life course, going beyond a focus on mother-child relationships to include multidirectional exchanges across generations and between genders. It highlights, in particular, how the sense of belonging in transnational families is sustained by the reciprocal, though uneven, exchange of caregiving, which binds members together in intergenerational networks of reciprocity and obligation, love and trust that are simultaneously fraught with tension, contest and relations of unequal power. The chapters that make up this volume cover a rich array of ethnographic case studies including analyses of transnational families who circulate care between developing nations in Africa, Latin America and Asia to wealthier nations in North America, Europe and Australia. There are also examples of intra- and extra- European, Australian and North American migration, which involve the mobility of both the unskilled and working class as well as the skilled middle and aspirational classes.

This book examines the transformations in home lives arising in later life and resulting from global migrations. It provides insight into the ways in which contemporary demographic processes of aging and migration shape the meaning, experience and making of home for those in older age. Chapters explore how home is negotiated in relation to possibilities for return to the "homeland," family networks, aging and health, care cultures and belonging. The book deliberately crosses emerging sub-fields in transnationalism studies by offering case studies on aging labour migrants, retirement migrants, and return migrants, as well as older people affected by the movement of others including family members and migrant care workers. The diversity of people’s experiences of home in later life is fully explored and the impact of social class, gender, and nationality, as well as the corporeal dimensions of older age, are all in evidence.

'Aging within Transnational Families' is the first book to provide a multi-method approach to studying aging across borders. By asking how, why and to what extent do older Peruvians engage in transnational family ties and practices, the book enhances our knowledge about aging across borders. Drawing on the care circulation framework and the capacity and desire approach, it explores the motivations of older Peruvians’ transnational involvement as well as the factors influencing the scope and propensity of their cross-border practices. From a lifecourse perspective, the book asks how age relates to older Peruvian migrants’ integration into the host society and engagement in the sending of remittances and visits of family members in Peru. Exploring the prevalence and structuring features of family-related transnational practices against the backdrop of different migration regimes 'Aging within Transnational Families' shows how policies affect transnational family configurations and the role of older people within them.

For generations, migration moved in one direction at a time: migrants to host countries, and money to families left behind. The Labor of Care argues that globalization has changed all that. Valerie Francisco-Menchavez spent five years alongside a group of working migrant mothers. Drawing on interviews and up-close collaboration with these women, Francisco-Menchavez looks at the sacrifices, emotional and material consequences, and recasting of roles that emerge from family separation. She pays particular attention to how technologies like Facebook, Skype, and recorded video open up transformative ways of bridging distances while still supporting traditional family dynamics. As she shows, migrants also build communities of care in their host countries. These chosen families provide an essential form of mutual support. What emerges is a fascinating portrait of today's transnational family—sundered, yet inexorably linked over the distances by timeless emotions and new forms of intimacy.

This book focuses on the diverse interrelationships between aging and transnationality. It argues that the lives of older people are increasingly entangled in transnational contexts on the social as well as the cultural, economic and political levels. Within these contexts, older people both actively contribute to and are affected by border-crossing processes. In addition, while some may voluntarily opt for adding a transnational dimension to their lives, others may have less choice in the matter. Transnational aging, therefore, provides a critical lens on how older people shape, organize and cope with life in contexts that are no longer bound to the frame of a single nation-state. Accordingly, the book emphasizes the agency of older people as well as the personal and structural constraints of their situations. The chapters in this book reveal these aspects by approaching transnational aging from different methodological angles, such as ethnographic research, comparative studies, quantitative data, and policy and discourse analysis. Geographically, the chapters cover a wide range of countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America, such as Namibia, Thailand, Russia, Germany, the United States and Ecuador.

Collection of autobiographical interviews relating the migrant experience. Over 200 residents of a village in north eastern Italy emigrated to Perth between 1900 and 1997.Related are stories of visits home to Italy. Their stories have the themes of homesickness, farewells and reunions. Explores the sense of homelessness experienced and looks at the relationships between immigrants and their homelands and between place and identity. Concludes that visits home are central to the identity of immigrants and their children. Appendices provide migration charts, genealogies, and data on visits. Includes glossary, notes, bibliography and index. Author is Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Western Australia.

This book describes children and youth on the one hand and parents on the other within the newly configured worlds of transnational families. Focus is put on children born abroad, brought up abroad, studying abroad, in vulnerable situations, and/or subject of trafficking. The book also provides insight into the delicate relationships that arise with parents, such as migrant parents who are parenting from a distance, elderly parents supporting migrant adult children, fathers left behind by migration, and Eastern-European parents in Nordic countries. It also touches upon life strategies developed in response to migration situations, such as the transfer of care, transnational (virtual) communication, common visits (to and from), and the co-presence of family members in each other’s (distant) lives. As such this book provides a wealth of information for researchers, policy makers and all those working in the field of migration and with migrants. The chapter 'Afterword: Gender Practices in Transnational Families' is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license via link.springer.com.

Contemporary Western society is changing and, controversially, migration is often flagged up as one of the reasons why. The nature of population change challenges the conventional understandings of family forms and networks whilst multiculturalism poses challenges to our understanding of social change, families and social capital. This innovative book provides an overview of the emergence of new understandings of ethnicities, identities and family forms across a number of ethnic groups, family types, and national boundaries. Based on new empirical data from fairly distinct sets of transnational family networks in minority communities with a substantial presence in the United Kingdom – principally, Caribbean and Italian, but also drawing on others such as Indian – it examines their lived experiences and uses the concept of social capital to explore how these families manage to maintain close and meaningful links. Transnational Families discusses, explains and illustrates the substantial problems and issues confronted by communities and families, academics and policy-makers/implementers, and non-governmental organisations within a transnational world. It will be of interest to students and scholars of migration, transnationalism, families and globalisation.

With the exception of Canada’s relationship with the United States, Canada’s relationship with China will likely be its most significant foreign connection in the twenty-first century. As China’s role in world politics becomes more central, understanding China becomes essential for Canadian policymakers and policy analysts in a variety of areas. Responding to this need, The China Challenge brings together perspectives from both Chinese and Canadian experts on the evolving Sino-Canadian relationship. It traces the history and looks into the future of Canada-China bilateral relations. It also examines how China has affected a number of Canadian foreign and domestic policy issues, including education, economics, immigration, labour and language. Recently, Canada-China relations have suffered from inadequate policymaking and misunderstandings on the part of both governments. Establishing a good dialogue with China must be a Canadian priority in order to build and maintain mutually beneficial relations with this emerging power, which will last into the future.