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Ageing Across Borders: The Role of Sudanese Elderly Parents in the Process of Kin and Home Making Within Transnational Families

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Ways of Home Making in Care for Later Life

Part of the book series: Health, Technology and Society ((HTE))

Abstract

This chapter looks at the role of elderly parents ‘back home’ in shaping the process of family and home making within transnational families. Rather than being passive receivers of care, I explore how, in their need for care, ageing parents play a crucial role in the processes of home and family making, both for themselves and for their families. Based on multisited ethnographic fieldwork with Sudanese transnational families across the Netherlands, the UK and Sudan, this chapter shows how families go into highly mobile and changing living arrangements to care for and make home for and with their elderly. I argue that in negotiating the multidirectional provision and reception of care, the elderly parents of migrant children are active actors in sustaining and making families and homes in a transnational context.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Pseudonyms have been used to ensure the anonymity of the respondents.

  2. 2.

    Prior to the late 1980s, modest numbers of doctors, engineers and academics started to arrive in Western countries, especially the UK (IOM 2006). However, it was not until an Islamist military coup in 1989 that the arrival of Sudanese refugees and asylum seekers became more visible. In addition to this, over the last twenty years, regional conflicts, increasing inflation and conflicts in neighbouring countries have resulted in thousands of Sudanese moving outside their country to sustain their families (IOM 2015).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Bonn International Centre for Conversion, Bonn, Germany

    Ester Serra Mingot

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  1. Ester Serra Mingot
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Society Studies, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands

    Bernike Pasveer

  2. Centre of Diaconia and Professional Practice, VID Specialized University, Oslo, Norway

    Oddgeir Synnes

  3. Faculty of Health Studies, VID Specialized University, Oslo, Norway

    Ingunn Moser

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Serra Mingot, E. (2020). Ageing Across Borders: The Role of Sudanese Elderly Parents in the Process of Kin and Home Making Within Transnational Families. In: Pasveer, B., Synnes, O., Moser, I. (eds) Ways of Home Making in Care for Later Life. Health, Technology and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0406-8_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0406-8_12

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-15-0405-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-15-0406-8

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