Laufende Forschungsprojekte

Internationale Ruhestandsmigrant*innen in Kenia. Alltagswelten in Ungleichhheiten

Dieses Forschungsprojekt, das der Ruhestandsmigration nach Kenia nachgeht, verortet sich in dem noch jungen Forschungsfeld, das sich mit Migrationsprozessen älterer Menschen aus wirtschaftlich reicheren Ländern in ärmere Länder beschäftigt, insbesondere in Länder des „globalen Südens“.  Konkret siedelt sich das Projekt an der Südküste Kenias an, die ist zu einer prominenten Destination der Ruhestandsmigration geworden, vor allem unter Europäerinnen und Europäern. Die Region ist auch durch eklatante soziale Ungleichheiten zwischen der einheimischen Bevölkerung und Europäer*innen gekennzeichnet sowie durch Strukturen der Dominanz und Abhängigkeit von Europäer*innen. Das Projekt fokussiert auf der Analyse der alltäglichen Lebenswelten von Ruhestandsmigrant*innen und der damit verbundenen Bewältigungsanforderungen und -prozessen. Sie werden in ihren sozialen, emotionalen und finanziellen Implikationen für ihre Lebenssituation untersucht. Besondere Beachtung findet dabei die Frage, wie die strukturellen Ungleichheiten, die diese Region prägendabei zum Tragen kommen und mit ihrer Lebenswelt verwoben sind bzw. verwoben werden.

Projektleitung: Prof. Dr. Cornelia Schweppe

Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin: Alicia Bausch, M.A.

Publikationen:

Schweppe, C. (ed.) (2022): Retirement migration to the global South. Global inequalities and entanglements. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan

Schweppe, C. (2022): Introduction. Retirement migration to the “Global South”. Global inequalities and entanglements. In:  Schweppe, C. (ed.): Retirement migration to the global South. Global inequalities and entanglements. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1-25.

Schweppe, C., Müller, K. (2022): Social relationships of retirement migrants in Kenya with the local population: On devaluation practices, re-education efforts, and disappointments. In: Schweppe, C. (ed.): Retirement migration to the global South. Global inequalities and entanglements. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 95-115.

Ageing, care and migration on Cuba (2020-2024)

The project is located at the intersection of population ageing, migration and care in old age. From a transnational family perspective, it explores how care of older people is organized in contexts of migration and demographic change. While this topic has received increasing scholarly attention in recent years, Cuba has thus far been a blind spot in this field of research. Cuba is a particularly interesting case to study, as it combines substantial demographic change with high emigration of younger people. Both processes contributed to Cuba turning into one of the countries with the highest ratio of older people in Latin America and the Caribbean within a relatively short period of time. As a consequence, care for an increasing number of older people has become a major social and political challenge to the country. On Cuba, in principle it is the responsibility of the state to create an infrastructure of old age care. To date, such a public old age care infrastructure is largely missing. Old age care is largely the responsibility of the family and especially the younger generation. However, due to the far-reaching emigration of the younger generation, the family on side as an instance of care and support for older people is becoming fragile. Against this background, this study addresses the question how care is provided for older Cubans whose children completely or partly live abroad. It examines, which actors are involved in the organization and provision of care in old age and asks for the implications these arrangements have for the different actors, including the older people themselves.
Methodologically, the project is based on principle "follow the field", which was coined in the context of multi-sided ethnography (Marcus). We will start with narrative-guided semi-structured interviews of Cubans who live abroad and whose parents or grandparents live on Cuba, through which further actors involved in care will be identified and subsequently interviewed. This, in turn, might lead us to further actors involved.
By focusing on Cuba, the project contributes to extending transnational family and old age care research to previously neglected societies. The specific context of Cuba allows to ask empirically and theoretically how Cuba ties in with previous findings in this field of research, whether and how it irritates them and calls for expansion. In this respect, the project contributes to the theoretical and empirical development of this field of research in the international context.

Projektleitung: Prof. Dr. Cornelia Schweppe

Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter: Dr. Vincent Horn

Laufzeit: 2020–2024