The Spatial Reorganisation of Elder Care in a Transnational Setting: Experiences from Kerala, India. Sreerupa.Pillai@Gmail.Com

Recent research carried out on transnational migration has shown that along with the lives of the global migrants, the lives of those who remain at the source areas of migration are also being transformed. In the context of the increasing spatial dispersal of family members across the globe, and the distances separating them, the paper examines the spatial and temporal reorganisation of care for the older persona staying behind. The paper examines the spatiality of care provisioning while exploring how care travels across space and time. Further issues of gender, class and caste are also addressed while examining the reorganisation of elder care. The paper engages with these issues in an empirical setting in Central Travancore, Kerala, India; where there is large scale migration of younger generation and an intensification of ageing among those staying behind. In-depth interviews and narratives of middle and upper middle class older Christians, their caregivers and observations about their care arrangements provide the empirical material for the study.