Linked Lives: Elder Care, Migration, and Kinship in Sri Lanka
When youth shake off their rural roots and middle-aged people migrate for economic opportunities, what happens to the grandparents left at home? Linked Lives provides readers with intimate glimpses into homes in a Sri Lankan Buddhist village, where elders wisely use their moral authority and their control over valuable property to assure that they receive both physical and spiritual care when they need it. The care work that grandparents do for grandchildren allows labor migration and contributes to the overall well-being of the extended family. The book considers the efforts migrant workers make to build and buy houses and the ways those rooms and walls constrain social activities. It outlines the strategies elders employ to age in place, and the alternatives they face in local old folks’ homes. Based on ethnographic work done over a decade, Michele Gamburd shows how elders face the challenges of a rapidly globalizing world.
1136588572
Linked Lives: Elder Care, Migration, and Kinship in Sri Lanka
When youth shake off their rural roots and middle-aged people migrate for economic opportunities, what happens to the grandparents left at home? Linked Lives provides readers with intimate glimpses into homes in a Sri Lankan Buddhist village, where elders wisely use their moral authority and their control over valuable property to assure that they receive both physical and spiritual care when they need it. The care work that grandparents do for grandchildren allows labor migration and contributes to the overall well-being of the extended family. The book considers the efforts migrant workers make to build and buy houses and the ways those rooms and walls constrain social activities. It outlines the strategies elders employ to age in place, and the alternatives they face in local old folks’ homes. Based on ethnographic work done over a decade, Michele Gamburd shows how elders face the challenges of a rapidly globalizing world.
41.95 In Stock
Linked Lives: Elder Care, Migration, and Kinship in Sri Lanka

Linked Lives: Elder Care, Migration, and Kinship in Sri Lanka

by Michele Ruth Gamburd
Linked Lives: Elder Care, Migration, and Kinship in Sri Lanka

Linked Lives: Elder Care, Migration, and Kinship in Sri Lanka

by Michele Ruth Gamburd

Paperback

$41.95 
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Overview

When youth shake off their rural roots and middle-aged people migrate for economic opportunities, what happens to the grandparents left at home? Linked Lives provides readers with intimate glimpses into homes in a Sri Lankan Buddhist village, where elders wisely use their moral authority and their control over valuable property to assure that they receive both physical and spiritual care when they need it. The care work that grandparents do for grandchildren allows labor migration and contributes to the overall well-being of the extended family. The book considers the efforts migrant workers make to build and buy houses and the ways those rooms and walls constrain social activities. It outlines the strategies elders employ to age in place, and the alternatives they face in local old folks’ homes. Based on ethnographic work done over a decade, Michele Gamburd shows how elders face the challenges of a rapidly globalizing world.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781978815308
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Publication date: 11/13/2020
Series: Global Perspectives on Aging
Pages: 206
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

MICHELE RUTH GAMBURD is professor of anthropology at Portland State University, Oregon.

Table of Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 Chaos Flower: The Meaning of Family 18

3 Weighing Financial Opportunities: Migration, Remittances, or a Helping Hand? 39

4 Exchanging Assets for Care: Pensions and the Transfer of Property 57

5 A Youngest Son Called "Hope": Virilocal Ultimogeniture and the Ancestral Home 75

6 Health and Illness: Aging, Self, and Bodily Care 97

7 Shelter or Shame? Old Folks' Homes 119

8 Rebirth: Buddhism, Almsgivings, and the Transmigration of Souls 141

9 On Beginnings and Endings 171

Acknowledgments 177

Notes 179

References 181

Index 191

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