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Abstract
In this article, we explore the relationships between ageing, place and migration based on life history interviews with 37 female Latvian migrants in the UK. Reflecting an approach that sees migration as both embodied and emplaced, we conceptualise ageing and migration as entwined becomings that reconfigure the possibilities of a ‘better life’ in different time–spaces. Our approach combines time-geography with a well-being-based approach to migration constraints and outcomes. Our stress is on vitality – the ways in which migrants are able to mobilise resources and enact agency even in an environment where some aspects of life and working conditions are restrictive and exploitative. Hence, older Latvian women are able to transgress negative perceptions of ageing in their home country and achieve a measure of empowerment, both economic and psychosocial by moving to the UK.
Résumé
Dans cet article, nous explorons les relations entre le vieillissement, le lieu et la migration à partir d’entretiens sur l’histoire de vie de 37 migrantes Lettones au Royaume-Uni. Reflétant une approche qui considère la migration comme incarnée et placée, nous conceptualisons le vieillissement et la migration comme devenirs liés qui reconfigurent les possibilités d’une ‘meilleure vie’ dans des espaces-temps différents. Notre approche allie le temps-géographie à une approche, basée sur le bien-être, des contraintes et des conséquences de la migration. Nous mettons l’accent sur la vitalité – les façons dont les migrantes sont capables de mobiliser des ressources et mettre en œuvre des moyens même dans un environnement où certains aspects de conditions de vie et de travail sont restrictifs et relèvent de l’exploitation. Ainsi, les Lettones plus âgées sont capables de transgresser les perceptions négatives du vieillissement dans leur pays natal et de réussir une certaine émancipation, à la fois économique et psychosociale, en venant vivre au Royaume-Uni.
Resumen
En este trabajo se exploran las relaciones entre el envejecimiento, el lugar y la migración basadas en entrevistas de historia de vida a 37 mujeres emigrantes letonas en el Reino Unido. Reflejando un enfoque que considera la migración como corporal y emplazada, se conceptualiza al envejecimiento y la migración como devenires entrelazados que reconfiguran las posibilidades de una ‘vida mejor’ en diferentes espacios temporales. El enfoque en este trabajo combina tiempo y geografía con una aproximación hacia las limitaciones y los resultados de la migración basada en el bienestar. El énfasis está en la vitalidad — las formas en que las migrantes son capaces de movilizar recursos y promulgar la agencia, incluso en un entorno donde algunos aspectos de la vida y las condiciones de trabajo son restrictivos y explotadores. Por lo tanto, las mujeres letonas mayores son capaces de transgredir percepciones negativas del envejecimiento en su país de origen y lograr una medida de atribución de poder, tanto económica como psicosocial al desplazarse al Reino Unido.
Acknowledgements
We thank two anonymous referees and the editor David Conradson for valuable comments and suggestions for improving a previous version of this paper.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. Debates over the success of the Latvian strategy to emerge from the crisis are reviewed in Blanchard, Griffiths, and Gruss (Citation2013). Whilst some see the country’s rather quick recovery, with renewed strong growth and falling unemployment, as a success story, others see this as a fragile recovery and one dependent fundamentally on the large scale of emigration. Some pertinent statistics are as follows: GDP increased by 90% from 2001 to 2007 followed by a decrease of 25% in 2009, then a recovery of 18% in 2013. Unemployment data are a mirror-image: 14% in 2000, 6% in 2007, 21% in 2010 and 11% in 2013. Emigration is estimated to have removed 113,000, or 5% of the population, during the 2000s. For a critique of the austerity measures in the Baltics, see also Sommers and Woolfson (Citation2014).
2. All interviews, translations and transcriptions were carried out by the first-named author. Interviews were conducted in Latvian or Russian, according to the preference of the interviewee. Names used here are pseudonyms.
3. Elga’s wish to achieve the status of an attractive woman resonates with Cvajner’s (Citation2011) study of the ‘hyper-feminity’ of Ukrainian women in Italy. Cvajner argues that these public performances of hyper-feminity among older migrant women represent a certain understanding of womanhood as a normative project, combined, in a migration context, with a desire to counter-balance their degrading work as carers and domestic helps. She has acute ethnographic observations of these ‘mature platinum blondes, wearing heavy make-up and stiletto heels, scantily clad in overly bright colours’ (2011, p. 356).