Migrant visits over time: Ethnographic returning and the technological turn

This paper reflects on four decades of research (via ethnographic returning) to explore the social transformations in travel and communication technologies that have impacted the lived experiences, and consequently the theoretical conceptualization, of migrant visits. A comparison of migration waves between Italy and Australia reveals both continuities in visiting experience as deeply relational practices that facilitate a mutuality of being, but also transformations brought about by the technological turn. Visits take on different meanings depending on individual/ family life stage, generation, and community and national histories. The capacity for both physical and virtual copresence must be understood as coconstitutive, requiring a temporal perspective. The experiences of immobile migrants in residential care suggest that, in the context of rich histories of copresence over time, digital kinning can provide the capacity to share a mutuality of being that safeguards the socio-relational ties of individual and collective identities and belonging that make us human

Deprovincialising Italian Migration Studies: An overview of Australian and Canadian research

This essay attempts to examine how historians, anthropologists and sociologists of Italian migration in Australia and Canada have built and expanded on Italian American perspectives to provide a more nuanced view of Italian migration

Digital media, ageing and faith: Older Sri Lankan migrants in Australia and their digital articulations of transnational religion

To date, older adults have received little attention in the newly emerging technological narratives of transnational religion. This is surprising, given the strong association of later life with spiritual and religious engagement, but it likely reflects the ongoing assumption that older adults are technophobic or technologically incompetent. Drawing on ethnographic interviews with older Sinhalese Buddhist migrants from Sri Lanka, living in Melbourne, this paper explores the digital articulations of transnational religion that arise from older migrants’ uses of digital media. We focus on how engagements with digital media enable older Sinhalese to respond to an urgent need to accumulate merit in later life, facilitating their temporal strategies for ageing as migrants. We argue that these digital articulations transform both the religious imaginary and the religious practices that validate and legitimize a life well-lived

Ageing in transnational contexts: transforming everyday practices and identities in later life

This Special Issue on 'Ageing in Transnational Contexts: Transforming Everyday Practices and Identities in Later Life' extends our understanding of how ageing is experienced in transnational contexts. It focuses on how everyday lives and identities in older age are being negotiated by individuals who have migration histories or who are affected by the mobilities of others in their lives. In the introduction we situate our approach within an emerging strand of research investigating the inter-related processes of ageing and transnational migration. We also present the seven empirical case studies that constitute the issue and discuss their collective contribution for the research field

Diasporas in Australia: current and potential links with the homeland

This paper is the outcome a three year Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage project Diasporas in Australia: Current and Potential Links with the Homeland conducted from 2009-2012. The research involved a comparatives study of the Italian, Macedonian, Tongan, and Vietnamese diaspora in Australia. The broad purpose of the project was to consider how the different “type” of diaspora affected the nature and extent of their ties to the Homeland. This was explored from an interdisciplinary perspective into five broad areas: citizenship, identity and langue; personal ties through visits, communication and media use; political and communal involvement and philanthropy; family/kinship, caregiving and remittances; and business and professional ties. These are the levels of analysis within this article which consider the evaluation of diaspora typologies

Lifecourse Transitions: How ICTS Support Older Migrants' Adaptation to Transnational Lives

Lifecourse transitions from adulthood into older age are particularly complex for transnationalmigrants, bringing additional challenges and opportunities. Adding to the growing literature on ageing and migration, this article illustrates the ways ICTs facilitate the transnational lifecourse transitions of Vietnamese migrant grandparents in Australia through lifecourse digital learning. Research findings highlight the crucial role that digital citizenship plays in supporting migrant grandparents' adaptation to increasingly mobile lives through practices of digital kinning and digital homing. These practices include using technological tools to maintain social support networks, exchange transnational caregiving, tackle language, navigation, and social integration barriers, and consume culturally relevant media, all of which support migrant identities and belongings. Findings confirm the importance of ICTs in promoting lifecourse digital learning for older migrants who are often stereotyped for their poor learning capacities and ability to adapt to new living arrangements because of their older age

Lifecourse transitions: How ICTS support older migrants’ adaptation to transnational lives

Lifecourse transitions from adulthood into older age are particularly complex for transnational migrants, bringing additional challenges and opportunities. Adding to the growing literature on ageing and migration, this article illustrates the ways ICTs facilitate the transnational lifecourse transitions of Vietnamese migrant grandparents in Australia through lifecourse digital learning. Research findings highlight the crucial role that digital citizenship plays in supporting migrant grandparents’ adaptation to increasingly mobile lives through practices of digital kinning and digital homing. These practices include using technological tools to maintain social support networks, exchange transnational caregiving, tackle language, nav-igation, and social integration barriers, and consume culturally relevant media, all of which support migrant identities and belongings. Findings confirm the importance of ICTs in promoting lifecourse digital learning for older migrants who are often stereotyped for their poor learning capacities and ability to adapt to new living arrangements because of their older age

Concluding reflections: ‘Care circulation’ in an increasingly mobile world: Further thoughts

In this paper, Laura Merla and Loretta Baldassar address some of the key critiques that were formulated in this symposium on the ‘care circulation” perspective these two authors offered in their edited volume entitled “Transnational Families, Migration and the Circulation of Care”. Here, they focus in particular on three themes: care as social capital, the need to bring back ‘the political’, and the (dis)-embodiment of care practices. They highlight in particular that ‘care chains’ and ‘care circulation’ should not be seen as opposite, but rather as complementary perspectives

Group social capital and the employment prospects of refugee women who experience domestic violence

This paper offers research insights on how refugee women who experience domestic violence develop employment prospects. Guided by social capital theory and the concept of group social capital, the paper uses a qualitative approach to identify intrapersonal and interpersonal processes in a group intervention that assist women members to adjust their cognitive reasoning about their domestic violence experience and engage in behaviours that potentially enhance their employment prospects. The paper contributes to understanding how group processes can foster small wins that may enhance the employment prospects of this vulnerable group