Description
The numbers of immigrants entering old age are increasing throughout north-west Europe. The increase is partly due to the fact that individuals, who were young adults in the labour immigration phase around 1970, have now become pensioners. With old age and illness, new issues arise for individuals, their families, and the states in which they live. It is well documented that older ethnic minorities only have a limited use of nursing homes. The low uptake of such services raises questions of how older immigrants’ care needs are met instead, including the involvement of close kin.

Addressing this general topic from different perspectives, the seminar features the following presentations:

• 13.00-13.10: Welcome.
• 13.10-14.00: Crossing the double frontier: the interdisciplinary promise of the ageing-migration nexus
  • By Alistair Hunter, Senior Lecturer, University of Glasgow (Keynote; see abstract at the end of invitation).
• 14.15-14.45: Aging as a human condition – social relationality and the good old life, when the younger generation migrate away from the older
  • By Lone Grøn, Senior Researcher, VIVE the Danish Center for Social Science Research
• 14.45-15.15: More diversity, better quality of care? Constructions of professional identity and work culture among migrant care workers in Denmark
  • By Tine Rostgaard, Professor MSO, VIVE the Danish Center for Social Science Research
• 15.30-16.30: Initial findings from AISHA – Aging immigrants and self-appointed helper arrangements
  • By Mikkel Rytter, Professor MSO, Aarhus University; Sara Lei Sparre, Assistant Professor, Aarhus University; Abir Mohamad Ismail, PhD Fellow, Aarhus University and Anika Liversage, Senior researcher, VIVE - the Danish Center for Social Science Research

After the seminar, participants are invited to stay for a glass of wine.

The seminar is free and open for all. Please sign up by sending a mail to Anika Liversage: ani@vive.dk by Thursday the 9^th of May.

Abstract:

Alistair Hunter: Crossing the double frontier: the interdisciplinary promise of the ageing-migration nexus

The last decade has witnessed major growth in social scientific research at the intersection of ageing and migration. This effort has been led both by socio-gerontologists and by scholars in migration studies. The extent to which this body of work can be described as cultivating an inter-disciplinary dialogue is however open to discussion. This keynote presentation will begin by outlining the current state of the art in the ageing-migration nexus. It will then assess the scope for genuine inter-disciplinary learning across the social and socio-gerontological sciences. Several domains will be highlighted where migration studies may advance by considering the study of older people, and vice versa, where gerontology may advance by considering migrant perspectives. Theoretically, by building better explanations through reference to the perspectives of older people and migrants respectively. Methodologically, by mainstreaming approaches which foreground the ‘lifecourse’ (for migration studies) and ‘diversity’ (for gerontology). And conceptually, by advocating an end to the unhelpful ‘silo thinking’ which treats internal and international migration separately. Some of these points will be developed from research presented in my recent monograph Retirement Home? Ageing Migrant Workers in France and the Question of Return (Springer 2018).