The Young-Old Transnational Travellers: On the Transformation of Care Arrangements among Bulgarian Muslim Migrants in Spain
In spring 2008 Fatme, a
woman in her 50s, arrived in Tafalla, a Spanish village which is at present
home to many Bulgarian Muslim migrants[1]. She was visiting her
daughter, who had found a new job working in shifts at a large restaurant, and
was intending to take care of her 9-year-old grandson. Fatme had taken
two-month's unpaid leave from the sewing factory in the village
of Brushlyan[2], Bulgaria. But already on the first
day of her arrival everybody was animatedly discussing the surprising idea of
Fatme’s continuing on to Portugal
to visit her son. She looked worried, while her daughter and son-in-law were
rather silent, repeating: “It’s your
choice, it’s up to you, we can’t decide anything for you.” Three days later
Fatme disappeared from Tafalla. Once her son in Portugal
realised she was in Spain,
he insisted that she visit him and help to care for his two children, both
above 15 and not really in need of supervision. He also found her a temporary
job in an orange orchard. Less than a week later Fatme was back, having called
her daughter every day, complaining of the horrible conditions in the orchards.
She travelled back the 1000 kilometres from Portugal only to realise that in
the meantime her daughter had lost her job and did not need help with her son
anymore. A week later Fatme was back in Bulgaria, discontinuing her unpaid
leave and going back to work in the sewing factory. Throughout the whole affair
she was referred to as the “problematic grandmother” by her relatives.
While this is a somewhat
extreme example, there are a plenitude of cases of ageing people who are
engaged in complicated care schemes, which often confuse and upset some or all
family members. It is the rupture of prescribed and expected kin relations
under the conditions of transnational migration that I aim to explore here.
More specifically, I look into the category of ageing people who migrate
between contexts, families, and states and their adjustment to care obligations
in new migration circumstances. I approach the subject through a specific group
of ageing people from Brushlyan who are in constant movement between two or
more places. These people include grandparents who move between their place of
origin, which they often call their home, and the places where their children
reside (which might be in different houses, different towns, or different
countries) and where they help with raising their grandchildren. Inversely,
they also include people based in the destination country having left their
ageing parents at home, hence they travel back and forth to fulfil their duty
of care. They might also fit into both categories trying to juggle all their
obligations towards parents and grandchildren at once, which often turns out to
be an upsetting experience. These ageing people are the epitome of
transnational living, sometimes moving up to five times per year, spending
every two months in a different site. Analyzing the movements of this
group of ‘transnational ageing travellers’
and the relations they develop with their kin members an entry point into broader questions of the
transformation of family relations and kin expectations under conditions of
migration.
Despite the fact that many
of the aspects of ageing in the context of migration have already been
discussed[3], the case of ‘transnational ageing travellers’ remains
an unexamined issue. I seek here to demonstrate their specificity by exploring
the flexibilization of both their everyday practices and their life projects,
which they develop at a later age due to migration. At the same time, I will
argue that an important prerequisite for explaining the specifics of the 'transnational ageing travellers' lies
in the refinement of the broad category of the ageing into smaller and subtler
groupings. Thus, I will be using the notion of a social age group as a tool for distinguishing the nuances in the
expectations, obligations and care patterns among different groups of ageing
people.
In making these arguments,
I shall be drawing on my fieldwork from 2007 and 2008 in the village of Brushlyan,
in Bulgaria, and Tafalla, in
Spain,
where most of the migrants from Brushlyan are concentrated. I have explored the
network of care arrangements and their transformations in both countries. In
what follows I will briefly dwell on the issue of social age groups and
describe the migrants in their social, economic and political context. I will
then present the accepted and expected (i.e. the ideal) care arrangements in
the Bulgarian Muslim village community prior to migration. Then I will describe
the particular
ruptures and transformations in the “normal” care arrangements. I
conclude with reflections on the transformation of
the very concept of family and of who is part of which family.
Conceptual considerations: the young-old
and the old-old
While most migration
studies deal with a very limited category of ageing people in terms of social
class or social age (be it British retirees in Spain or elderly grandparents
left behind in Bangladesh), there is an analytical tendency to place all ageing
people together in one large indistinctive group of “the elderly”, “the aged”,
or “the ageing”. At the same time, social psychology and social gerontology
analyses have underlined the need to distinguish between different stages of
later life and have developed a more refined set of categories[4].
The difference between a
person who is middle aged and a person who is ageing or old, and what is
implied by this transition, has to be approached in a contextually sensitive
way. For example, in the case of Bulgarian Muslims living in rural areas
normally a woman with grandchildren and/or elderly parents-in-law in need of
care is regarded as an “old” person, even though her counterpart from the same
cohort in the capital city might still be regarded as a middle aged active
woman. There is yet another stage after this one: a person in need of care.
Following Neugarten (1974), I will refer to these two stages as the young-old and the old-old. I will further argue, however, that these stages are not
simply biologically defined, but are socially constructed. [5] Thus, while age appears to
be an objective criterion, the meanings, stages and conceptualizations it
encapsulates are shaped by social forces and performed in interaction with
others[6]. Furthermore, these
stages, being an analytical tool, often overlap in real life. An elderly woman
can be both ill and in need of assistance from her son and daughter-in-law,
dependent on them for money or transport to the hospital, and yet still be able
to help with raising the grandchildren.
Therefore, while keeping
the distinction between the young-old
and the old-old for the sake of
clarity, I shall continue to refine the categorization of ageing migrants,
placing them in different social age
groups. To do this I will employ the particular criterion of care, on the
basis of which I will distinguish between groups of people who have various
positions in terms of kin obligations. In the case of Bulgarian Muslims, who
are a predominantly rural population living in rather small conservative
communities, age is defined by passage through different statuses and related
obligations. In addition, the age status always depends on gender and differs
between men and women. Thus a woman changes her status from a girl, into a
married woman, into a mother (especially when she has a son), into a
mother-in-law, into a grandmother, into a woman whose parents-in-law are not
alive, into a widow. A man changes from a boy, into a young working man, into a
married man who becomes the breadwinner, into the head of his own nuclear
family, into the head of the extended family with daughters-in-law and
grandchildren. All these statuses (largely growing in importance with
increasing age) are connected to different care arrangements and obligations.
Thus, each status corresponds to a particular social age group, based on care
division.
My main focus here will be
the young-old who are part of the
social age group which has to combine two types of care obligations; having
both young grandchildren and elderly parents. They are what I call the ‘transnational ageing travellers’ and I
will explore the alterations which migration causes in their relations with
both the older and younger generations. At the same time, I will continue to
use the notion of generation in the
narrow sense of transitions, in terms of children, parents, grandparents. This
means that people from the same generation (i.e. having children and
grandchildren) might have a different social age.
Bulgarian Muslims in Spain:
Flat dense networks and the family safety net
Bulgarian Muslims in Tafalla
in the Navarra region started migrating to Spain about 8 years ago, the
majority after 2001 when Schengen restrictions were lifted for Bulgarian
citizens. They all come from the same village in Bulgaria,
located in the Western part of the Rhodopi Mountains. They arrived
in several waves on the principle of network chain migration, using flat dense
networks. I use the term dense networks to signify strong ties (i.e.
family/kin) rather than the weaker ties based on religion or ethnicity (see
Granovetter 1974). The flatness of the networks refers to the horizontalization
and stratification of
Migrants from Brushlyan mostly
do not communicate with Spanish people or with migrants from other countries.
By now the village community concentrated in Tafalla is so large that people
say they feel socially as if they were not in Spain. Sometimes whole kin groups
(three generations) live in Tafalla, which allows for a partial reproduction of
the social relations which were maintained in Bulgaria. Old conflicts and
intrigues are transferred to Spain,
patterns of going out, paying visits, and holiday celebrations are repeated[7]. Over the last 3 years a
Bulgarian satellite television has been established, which creates an even
stronger link to life in Bulgaria
through news, talk shows and popular soap operas watched and discussed at both
ends of the transnational field. Another aspect of the reconstruction of the
community is the use of the Bulgarian language: the size of the migrant group
in Tafalla means that most people who have arrived in later migration waves do
not need to learn Spanish. The established migrants manage all the necessary
formalities for “new migrants”. Of course this is gender specific with women
who work in domestic services speaking much less Spanish than construction or
factory workers, who have Spanish colleagues and employers. With this context
in mind, many of my respondents would repeat the same sentence: “Whoever comes now, comes to a second
Brushlyan, not to Tafalla. Everything is arranged, you don’t need to learn the
language even… there will be always someone who will help you with finding a
job, and an apartment to live.”
Whilst social relations
may seem the same in Tafalla, as in Brushlyan, the generational dynamic is not
reproduced in Spain:
Bulgarian Muslim migrants are mostly young people; sometimes single men; more
often families with young children who might or might not be brought to Spain.
The rupture in the generational balance causes all kinds of
Social age groups
I will now describe the
main social age groups among migrants in Spain. The majority, or ‘kernel’, group are migrants aged
between 26 and 33. Migrants from this group are at the height of their active
working life. Most of them have arrived in the last 4 years, following the
first wave of close relatives or trying out their luck. Men arrive first, and
are later joined by their wives. Some women arrive with children, others leave
children at home until they are settled and then send for them. Within this group
there are also women who gave birth after they have arrived in Spain.
Some returned to Bulgaria, while
others with husbands with legal status and access to health insurance gave birth
in Spain.
This age group has children who are largely still in need of care. Therefore,
many young parents ask their mothers to come to Spain to take care of the children.
The mother is often followed by the father. Thus, this group tends to act as a
pulling factor, influencing the migration choices of the 'parents’ group.
The ‘parents’ are between 45 and 60 years old. There are two possible
migration scenarios for this group: men arrive first, find a job through their
children, and then women join them in order to take care of the grandchildren.
Alternatively, women arrive first to take care of the grandchildren, and men
join them later and find a job. These people are still at a working age. In Bulgaria they would usually both be working,
whilst in Spain
usually only the father works. Within this age group there are the ‘pioneers’, who have a
different status: they are men in their 50s who arrived in Spain 7-9 years ago. They are a
minority but they are influential; accepted as opinion leaders, they are
proficient in Spanish, already have work permits and have brought their
extended families to Spain. They plan to retire in Spain
so that they can get a Spanish pension, which they can then spend in Bulgaria. Their wives are with them in Spain; these who might become transnational
carers if there is a need to fulfil a care arrangement with an ageing parent in
Bulgaria.
The difference in status
and position between the ‘parents’
group and the ‘pioneer’ group demonstrates
the need for a social age group concept. While both groups have the same age
and are from the same generation in terms of employment stage, age of children
and grandchildren, they are treated in a different way by the community. The ‘parents’ group is regarded as a
subsidiary group; they are in Spain
as temporary or permanent assistants to their children. They are thought of and
think of themselves as having reached the end of their active lives and arrange
their plans and movements through their children. Thus their social status is
lessening already. Quite on the contrary, the ‘pioneers’ are still the central organizing core for the extended
family. Much depends on them, financially and socially. They are in the peak
stage of their age and in this sense are in a different social age group than
the ‘parents’. Thus, even in the same
small community there might be meaningful differences between people of the
same biological age.
A third group are the ‘very young people’, in their 20s, who
are part of the extended family of the kernel (brothers, sisters, cousins).
They have just graduated from school and come straight to Spain to work. Most of members of
this group have arrived relatively recently, after it became easier to stay in Spain
legally for an unlimited period of time. Most of them are not married yet and
do not have any dependents. They usually stay in the same house as the person
from the kernel who influenced their decision to migrate and very often work
with some of the family members. Some of them in fact try to help with taking
care of the children of their extended family members, but this is an exception
rather than a rule.
Finally, the children group comprises the fifth
social age group. They have different ages, and so need different types of
care. The children of the ‘pioneers’ are
older, either with their own families, or just graduated from high-school and
working in Spain.
The children of the ‘kernel’ group
are young and even though they all go either to nursery or to school, they
still need extra assistance from an adult[8]. However, many women
working in restaurants or hotels have shifts which do not coincide with
childcare hours and thus they need additional help, for example with picking up
the children from school. Hence the need for another family member.
Here, the ‘parents’ and the ‘pioneers’ are the young old,
while the old old would be the
ageing parents of these groups who have stayed behind in Bulgaria. They are
very often in need of additional assistance. The prescribed or ideal care
arrangement is usually for the daughter-in-law or one of the sons to go back
home to take care of an ageing parent. Nonetheless, with mass migration there
are more and more critical cases which need alternative decisions.
Ideal care arrangements
By identifying the
different social age groups, I have briefly outlined some of the care
arrangements. I will now detail the prescribed care arrangements which would
have been regarded as normal prior to migration. My observations are based on
the practices of both migrants and non-migrants. Very often care obligations
have been discussed ad hoc in conversations because of a crisis or a
complicated case in relation to care arrangements among relatives. Such crises
very often led to transformations: some subtle, some extreme.
In Brushlyan the
patrilocal tradition is strictly kept. This means that daughters-in-law are
usually responsible for taking care of the elderly, i.e. parents-in-law. There
are two possible scenarios: either people who have migrated and have elderly
relatives at home are not the ones responsible for taking care of them or, if
the responsibility for care rests with the son who has migrated, then his wife,
the daughter-in-law, may stay behind. If she has already joined her husband,
and there is an emergency, e.g. the elderly person becomes suddenly ill, then
she is obliged to return and remain in Bulgaria for as long as she is
needed there. The decision about who will have care responsibilities is usually
determined by who will inherit the house and/or who lived with the parents
before migration. The rule is that the elder sons have to “go out of the house”
and the youngest stays, inheriting the house and also the responsibility to
take care of the parents. Although this has become more flexible and different
arrangements can be made, most people still follow this rule.
The other care strategy is
for elderly people to take care of their grandchildren. If living in Brushlyan,
the rule prescribes that the mother of the husband assists with taking care of
her grandchildren. However, the village is small enough for the two
grandmothers to share the responsibility if required. With regard to migration,
there are two polar tendencies for this aspect of care: In some cases the
children are taken to Spain
by their parents, with the parents' mothers or mothers-in-law often coming
along to help with grandchildren. The opposite strategy is to leave the
children behind, which is common in the initial stage of migration. A variation of this strategy is children
being sent back. This most often happens with children approaching school age,
when parents decide that it would be better if their child received a proper
education, as they see it, in Bulgaria,
and most importantly that the children learn to read and write in Bulgarian. In
the case of children being taken care of in Bulgaria the designated grandmother
will have to quit her job in order to devote all her time to the grandchild.
In the above cases it
seems that migration does not change the traditional mechanism of care: no new
arrangements emerge. Even if there are daughters-in-law living in a
neighbouring house in Bulgaria,
if the son responsible for caring for his parents migrates, then his wife will
return to fulfil the care responsibilities. Thus the extended family safety net
functions in the case of migration in a similar way to how it worked before
people started migrating. Nevertheless, by scrutinizing individual cases it
becomes apparent that the neat structure is in fact starting to go through certain
transformations. This will be illustrated in the next section by a few personal
stories.
Transformations in care arrangements – four cases of the young-old in a state of flux
Case 1: On the meaning of living with the wife’s parents
Alil lives with his wife’s
parents in Spain.
They share a flat, a kitchen, expenses, and they dine together. The grandmother
helps with their 3 year old son when both parents are at work during the week: she
picks him up from the school bus and stays with him until her daughter, the
mother, returns from working in a hotel near Tafalla. Alil used to work as a
construction worker outside Tafalla, and came back on Saturday afternoons only
to leave again on Monday morning. Now he has changed jobs and is working in
Tafalla. Alil’s wife has only one free day per week, Wednesdays. She’s busy all
day long during the weekends but her mother only takes care of her grandson
during the week. When Alil is free on the weekends, he is the one to take full
responsibility for his son. He does things which other men would not do: he
takes his son to the park and hangs out with mothers and grandmothers there, he
goes to visit his sister and nephews in the early afternoon, just as the rest
of the women with children do.
Instead of playing cards on Sunday afternoon in the pensioner’s club, where
most of the other men go, he is busy with his son. The result of these
“unfortunate events” is that his fellows and male relatives pity him and make
compassionate comments about his situation. When I asked why the mother-in-law
did not take care of her grandson over the weekends, he explained: “Well, she’s busy, you know, she visits her
son in
This only lasts while Alil
and his wife are in Spain.
Once they return to Bulgaria
for vacation they all live in his parents’ house. Alil’s masculine authority is only challenged whilst they are in Spain, even though he has been in Spain for 5 years now and does not plan to go back
to Bulgaria
in the near future. The temporariness of his position leads to a series of
complicated semi-transformations of his relations with the rest of the
relatives. Thus, on one hand his mother-in-law does help with his son and with
the household. On the other hand, however, she is not held responsible for all
the daily activities related to his son. She in fact helps her daughter rather
than the daughter’s whole family. Alil’s parents-in-law take their vacation in
July, while Alil and his wife return to Bulgaria in August. The parents are
not willing to change their vacation plans, even though it would be more
convenient for them to travel together to Bulgaria, and then there would be
fewer complications over who will take care of the grandson in July when he’s
not in kindergarten. The solution until now was that the mother of Alil has
been coming to Spain for a
month to help with the grandson, while the other grandmother is in Bulgaria.
This is considered to be absolutely normal by all affected, while Alil’s
mother-in-law's support during the year is thought of as a favour. Zaira,
Alil’s mother, changed her lifestyle. She stopped growing tobacco over the
summer, sold her cow, and eventually stopped working at the sewing factory
because she needed to come to Spain.
It is regarded as her duty and obligation to help her son: she is a typical
‘transnational elderly traveller’.
The more I stayed in
Tafalla, the more I realised that Alil’s case was not unique. For various
reasons, many men end up living with their parents-in-law in Spain. This leads to a mixing of
power relations in which male authority and leadership roles get confused.
Moreover, it creates a complicated web of mutual help and reciprocity issues
which did not exist before migration. Elderly mothers feel obliged to help
their son’s families, whilst at the same time living with their daughters’
families. Thus grandmothers arrive in Spain to help their sons and ignore
their daughters.
To continue examining
Alil’s family setup: the first time Zaira went to Spain
she stayed at his place, while his parents-in-law were in Bulgaria. When the parents-in-law
returned Zaira’s mother decided to stay a bit longer as her own daughter was
due to give birth in less than two weeks. She moved to her daughter’s place,
but felt obliged to continue caring for Alil’s son, whilst simultaneously
trying to help her daughter take care of her son, too. This meant running from
one part of the village to the other four times a day, which led among other
things to serious weight loss. When I asked why the other grandmother, the
mother of the wife, did not take the child to the kindergarten as usual, Zaira
explained: “Oh, no, how could she, if I
am here. It doesn’t matter that I live in another house, I am obliged to help
my son. What would other people say, if I only helped my daughter?”
Case 2: Care for free, care for money
A similar example is Ayse
who lives in Spain
with her husband, daughter and son-in-law. Her other son is also in Spain, but lives in
In both cases the main
motivation is the consideration: “what would other people say?”. Not keeping an
obligation would lead to disgrace. Thus reciprocity and public shame are the
two leading social forces behind kin relationships. This also entails a
well-established concept of what it means to be a “proper
mother/grandmother/daughter-in-law” or “proper man”. Variation from the model
leads to disharmony. However, when migration enters the scene the relationships
become flexible: grandmothers start taking care of their daughters’ children,
men start living with their wives’ parents. While things are not completely
transformed and the “old” habits and manners are still influential, new
agreements come into force to address new situations. This is a complicated process; grandmothers take care
of the son’s children for free because it is part of long lasting
intergenerational reciprocity relations, but taking care of the daughter’s
children requires a different type of reciprocity, which includes direct
payment and gifts (like an expensive sewing machine for example). Thus, even
though the care arrangements are transformed, these transformations are
inevitably cast away as temporary or shameful, or are partially circumvented
through complicated adjustments.
Case 3: Choosing between parents and children
The other end of the care
chain is the care of the old old. The
case of Dordana provides an example of a subtle change in the prescribed care
act. Her husband is the youngest brother of three boys, and the penultimate
child of five children altogether. According to the village tradition he will
be the one to inherit the parents’ house. His two elder brothers are also in Spain
with their wives and children, while his two sisters live in Brushlyan. Dordana
was living in Spain
with her husband and her two young sons (19 and 24) for over a year, taking
care of the household and working part time in a restaurant. In the summer of
2007, while on vacation in Bulgaria,
her elder son got married and took his wife with him to Spain. In the meantime, Dordana’s
father-in-law became very ill and could no longer live on his own. His other
two sons were in Spain
and he was living all by himself. The decision was that Dordana would stay and
she immediately started working in one of the sewing factories, while her sons
and husband continued living in Spain.
The two sisters of her husband, though living not far away, did not offer any
assistance. They belonged to other extended families now with other care
arrangements. Thus, an elderly woman has to choose her father-in-law (or
mother-in-law as another case demonstrated) over her husband and sons when it
comes to care.
However, about a year
later the situation changed. Dordana’s new daughter-in-law became pregnant.
This led to a small crisis; if all family members were in the same physical
place, it would have been easy for Dordana to combine helping her
daughter-in-law with taking care of her ageing father-in-law. However, the
distance triggered the need for change, which engendered complications in the
extended family relations. Since the young wife was about to give birth in Spain,
Dordana decided to go back at the last moment and to leave her father-in-law to
the care of his own daughters. This was settled with a lot of arguments. I was
told by various family members that to offer money in exchange for care was out
of the question and would ruin the idea of a family. But at the same time it
was not very clear to the members of the dispute how they could solve the
imbalance in the care arrangements. When I asked why the mother of the young
bride did not go to Spain for a while to assist with the baby, everybody told
me that she had her son’s son to take care of and that, anyway, it would be
highly inappropriate. In this sense, not all transformations in the care
arrangements are possible. For example, the relation between Dordana and the
young daughter-in-law had yet to be established, and could not be violated,
while the negotiations between the ageing brothers and sisters in terms of who
would take care of their father turned out to be a less rigid obligation.
The case of Dordana
demonstrates a typical transnational grandmother who has to divide her care
between the elderly left behind and the new born grandchildren, thus she becomes
a person without a permanent abode, without permanent employment or a permanent
everyday routine. It also indicates the type of family transformations which
might take place in light of migration.
Case 4: Intergenerational relations and the transformation of male
authority
It is not only young men who
are bothered by the unusual situation of them living with their parents-in-law.
The violation of the patrilocal tradition may also cause tensions for the
father of the young woman. This change in the male authority in the household,
i.e. the status change, is always experienced as traumatic. While there is a
clear understanding between father and son, when the father lives with the
daughter’s husband there can be tensions over the issue of who is the real head
of the family. Moreover, younger men adapt easily to life abroad and gain new
life skills which are not transmitted to the older generations, which leaves
the elderly dependent on the younger ones.
The other group among the
‘young old’ are those who live in Spain
with their sons. They suffer from devaluation of their knowledge and life
experience as well, but in a milder form. Their authority is put under question
only in terms of age, not in terms of mixing of kin position. In both cases
however, the meaning of belonging to a certain social age group has been
transformed through migration.
A third type of young old men in Spain are the travelling
grandfathers, i.e. ageing men visiting their daughters for up to several
months. They visit their daughters with the idea of helping with the
grandchildren, but end up finding temporary employment, usually in agriculture
or construction. The result is that the daughter gives up her employment, while
her father takes the new job. The difference is quite obviously gender defined.
While for women the concept of shame comes from failing to keep their care
obligations, for men shame is triggered by stepping out of the traditional male
role. By taking care of grandchildren, they not only take up a female
obligation, but also give up their role as bread-winners. A temporary job
reinstates them in the “proper” position and normalizes the kin relations. The
fact that they have actually come to Spain to assist their daughter’s
families is of less importance.
For women things look
slightly different. Most of the ‘young
old’ women have difficulties with the fact that they do not settle for
long: often they spend up to three months in Spain, then they go back to
Bulgaria for two months, and come to
Spain again. Since they are rarely the major breadwinner of the family, changes
of plans and of place are more usual for them than for their husbands. What is
most upsetting for these women is that the decision is never their own, and not
even their husbands’, but their children’s. One such example is of a woman who
is in Spain
helping her daughter with her 2-year-old son. Her husband is also there,
working. One of her sons is in
Concluding remarks: transformations of the family
Care arrangements among
Bulgarian Muslims, as described above, are kept within the boundaries of the
family: paying for a nanny or for someone to take care of a sick ageing parent
is not an acceptable option, neither is sending elderly people to a nursing
home. This is not surprising in the context of Bulgaria and more specifically of
the village region where Bulgarian Muslims live: nursing homes are state owned,
uncommon and have very miserable living conditions. Meanwhile paying for
someone to help is something very few people can afford to do. Even asking a
member of the same family, like a daughter to take care of her father, as the
example of Dordana revealed, might be problematic and creates turbulence. In
the case of the Bulgarian Muslims I have described, the kin-obligations, which
are based on a complicated structure of reciprocity, are strictly defined. They
are based on a clear concept of who belongs to the family, and who remains
outside the family. In this sense, migration conditions disrupt not only the
care arrangements, but also the fabric of the family.
Through the case of the ‘transnational ageing traveller’ I have
tried to demonstrate the subtle transformations and ruptures which migration
triggers. While the basic structure of care arrangements appears to remain the
same, and obligations are kept within the family, the different emergency cases
which the young-old people in the
community respond to, demonstrate how the practices and principles of caring
are changing. This, in its turn, leads to critical moments in which the
statuses and obligations within the family are reformulated. A son-in-law
temporally becomes part of the family of his wife, a grandmother gradually
acknowledges the reformulated family relation she has with her daughter’s
children etc. In this sense, the very existence of the ‘transnational ageing travellers’ is defined by and also influences
the transformation, albeit subtle and slow, of the family fabric and meaning.
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[1] Bulgarian Muslims is a term used to refer to
this group of people. “Pomaks”, “Bulgarian speaking Muslims” and
“Bulgarian-Mohamedans” are among others which are commonly used. I have chosen
to use the designation Bulgarian Muslim for three reasons: First, because it
represents a critical discussion of both aspects of identification – being
Muslim, but not Turkish, and being Bulgarian, but not Christian. In addition,
it does not contain the possible pejorative or insulting overtones which the
other concepts (especially “Pomaks”) might have for certain people (and more
particularly for the group of people I have researched). Finally, it points to
the officially recognized categories which are used by state institutions,
which allows a commentary on such categorizations.
[2] Brushlyan is the fake name for the village I am
describing here. I have changed it in order to maintain the anonymity of the
people. This applies to all the names.
[3] Migration in
later life has occupied less scholarly attention in comparison to youth and
middle age migration. Nevertheless, there are several streams of literature on
ageing and migration, which have developed recently. One stream of studies is
devoted to migration at later age, looking at various types of elderly people
migrating for the first time at an advanced age (among others, Blakemore (1999);
Evergetti and Zontini(2006).
These groups vary from UK
retired migration to Southern European countries (Ackers
and Dwyer 2002; King, et al. 2000) to elderly Pakistani women joining
their husbands and grown up children in the UK (Gardner
2002). Another line of research explores the ageing migrants who have
spent substantial periods of time in their host country and have to struggle
with social policy problems related to retirement and care arrangements and the
possibility of return migration. (Ackers
2004; Ackers and Dwyer 2002) A third aspect is studying the effect migration
has upon elderly people left behind in need of care and the transformations of
reciprocity contracts and other types of intergenerational care arrangements
triggered by migration. (Mazzucato
2008; Pyle 2006; Schroeder-Butterfill 2003; van der Geest et al. 2004).
A further addition are studies which demonstrate the importance of the
emotional aspect of movement or separation (Evergeti
and Zontini 2006; Parrenas 2005).
[4] For an example of more detailed discussion of
this see the pioneer in the studies of ageing Bernice Neugarten (1974),
(1996),
also Ackers and Dwyers (Ackers
and Dwyer 2002), Baldassar (2007),
Karp et. al(1982),
Warnes (1992).
[5] While Neugraten (1974, 1996) insists on
breaking the category of the ageing into two groups and demonstrates how the
ageing period has become longer with the change of the life span and the social
conditions, she employs a rather rigid distinction, by arguing that there is a
substantial difference between the characteristics of the Americans aged 55 –
74 years old, and those aged 75 and older. When applying this division to other
groups of people though, the age span might have to be reconsidered, as in the
case of the Bulgarian Muslim migrants, where a much lower age limit would make
someone an old-old. Thus, the division should not be based on biological age,
but rather consider the specificity of the social environment and the practices
of the particular population segment to which it is employed.
[6] On
the social construction of age see Gardner (2002),
Gubrium (1977),
Gubrium et al. (1994),
Hazan (1992),
Karp et al. (1982),
Laz (1998),
Neugarten (1996).
[7] I had the opportunity to witness one of the two
biggest Muslim holidays, Ramazan Bayram being celebrated. Without going into
details, it seems that for many people the experience was not too far from what
they used to do in Bulgaria.
On the second day of the celebration a big group of people went to the
outskirts of the town for a whole day, and had a big picnic with roasted lamb,
dances and songs. The most frequent comment was: “It’s as if we are not in Spain, isn’t it? It’s absolutely
the same. The only difference is that our cars have Spanish registration
numbers.”
[8] Nursery has two stages. Guarderia, for children 1 to 3 yeas old, which
is paid and usually provides care only for half a day. And a nursery attached
to the school for children 3 to 5, which is subsidised by the state. Younger
children often do not lunch there, and go home for a couple of hours. Both this
kindergarten and the subsequent school offer services all day, from 9 to 5.
Neda Deneva is a doctoral student at the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, Central European University, Budapest. She is working on the transnational migration of Bulgarian Muslims to Spain and the relations with the two states which they develop. Her main areas of interest are migration studies, anthropology of the state, social citizenship, social ageing and family studies. She can be reached at deneva_neda(at)phd.ceu.hu