Transnational migration, local specificities and reconfiguring eldercare through ‘market transfer’ in Kerala, India

ABSTRACT

Select research has indicated that widespread migration is catalysing the novel reimagining of eldercare and transformative changes in the local eldercare economy in the Global South. Yet research on ageing and migration from the South has largely focused on transnational care practices of providing emotional support and economic remittances. Drawing on ethnographic research among the privileged and affluent community of Syrian Christians of Kerala, India, I argue for a diverse and complex Southern reconfiguration of eldercare at the intersection of migration, which also includes ‘market transfer’ of proximate care services as reciprocal filial care. Further, the paper illuminates how specificities of migration, ageing and care are locally nuanced and shape diverse transnational care practices. In turn, transnational care strategies employed by the migrants to overcome distances transform the local eldercare economy and (re)produce class-stratified eldercare spaces. Through the study of a privileged community, the paper highlights the increasing marketisation of the eldercare landscape in the sending countries of the South and contributes to furthering diversified understandings of the ageing-migration nexus.

KEYWORDS:

• Ageing
• migration
• transnational care
• marketisation
• gender
• India

Acknowledgements

The paper is an extension of the my PhD thesis ‘Transnational Linkages and Organisation of Care work for the Aged in Central Travancore, Kerala’ submiited at Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuramand. Part of the paper was written during my post-doctoral fellowship at CWDS and King’s College London. I thank the guest editors and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments that have improved the manuscript. I am also grateful to all the older persons and their carers who shared their care experiences with me.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Through delegation of care to family, relatives, friends or paid care workers (Kilkey and Merla 2014).

2 A pseudonym is used to protect the privacy of the community studied.

3 One of the principal Syrian Christian denominations.

4 Ali (2007, 38) describes a culture of migration as ‘the cultural atmosphere that leads many to decide to migrate’.

5 Malayalam term for mother used among Syrian Christians.

6 Malayalam term for father used among Syrian Christians.

7 Endearing Malayalam term used for children.

8 Also includes the performing of key life cycle rituals; however, in this discussion, I limit my focus to the exchanges of material support, services of caring and sentiments.

9 The 1986 Supreme Court ruling on Syrian Christian inheritance (Philips 2003).

10 See https://socialsecuritymission.gov.in/index.php (accessed in May 2022).

11 This has been widely documented in the South Asian migration scholarship.

12 Onam is a harvest festival celebrated in Kerala.

13 Only limited field data was collected keeping in mind his frail health but his long-time home nurse contributed inputs which could be described as ‘vicarious voice’ (Hyden 2008).

14 With few notable exceptions like the Palliative care programme in Kerala.

Additional information

Funding

This paper is partly based on the data collected for the author’s PhD project ‘Transnational Linkages and Organisation of Care work for the Aged in Central Travancore, Kerala’ funded by ICSSR.