Ageing ‘on the edge’: later-life migration in the Azores
This thesis looks at the diversity of living and ageing experiences in the Azores, exploring the complex intersections between migration, place and older people through a relational lens. It seeks to make a number of original contributions: mapping out the ageing–migration nexus within geographical...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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2018
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| Online Access: | http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/72966/ http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/72966/1/Sampaio,%20Dora%20Isabel%20Martins.pdf |
| Summary: | This thesis looks at the diversity of living and ageing experiences in the Azores, exploring the complex intersections between migration, place and older people through a relational lens. It seeks to make a number of original contributions: mapping out the ageing–migration nexus within geographical research; bringing together, under a common theoretical framework, three different types of later-life migrants – labour, lifestyle and return migrants – seldom looked at in a comprehensive comparative manner; putting in dialogue the narratives of migrants and non-migrants; and tapping into a distinctive and, thus far, largely overlooked geographical setting – the Azores. This is a research dually ‘on the edge’: for its geographical focus on a nine-island archipelago remotely located in the North Atlantic, and by examining a migrant population chronologically ‘at the extreme’ of the age spectrum. The research is empirically grounded on in-depth life narrative interviews, complemented by other research techniques such as participant observation, a focus group, and photography. The thesis offers several key findings: above all, it exposes later-life migration as fundamentally diverse and shaped by migrants’ aged, gendered, classed, and ethnicised subjectivities; ageing is seen as a fluid process and an ongoing social construct. Later-life (migration) should be viewed as not necessarily vulnerabilising, but potentially empowering and liberating; and later-life migration decision-making is found to be complex and multi-layered, showing that economic and lifestyle motives can no longer be analysed separately and that a holistic approach is crucial for a richer understanding of the migration process. Stemming from this, four themes emerge from older migrants’ living and ageing experiences in the Azores: ‘home’ and ambiguous belongings; cultures of ageing and ageing care; ageing in specific relation to place; and intimacy, loss and their negotiations. These show the importance of moving beyond simple binaries of older age as ... |
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