Materialities and imaginaries of home: Geographies of British returnees in later life

Abstract

This paper explores home materialities and home imaginaries in later life, to provide insight into the dialectical relation between the spatial processes of ageing and migration. The paper draws on empirical research with British return migrants in older age. The analysis purposively selects four participants from among a wider sample of interviewees to highlight some of the diversity among British returnees and their varied experiences of remaking home on return. The paper explores both the privilege and vulnerabilities of all British returnees as the meaning of home transforms in later life. K E Y W O R D S ageing, British migration, domesticity, home, interviewing, return migration ---

International retirement and later-life migrants in the Marche region, Italy: materialities of landscape, ‘home’, lifestyle and consumption

“…Whilst we do not ignore the ‘home scale’ in the research reported in this paper, we deliberately broaden our scoping of materialities in two directions. In doing so, we endorse Blunt and Dowling's (2006: 26–29) idea of home as porous and multi-scalar, enlarging beyond home as a purely ‘private’ space, and taking on board the setting of home as simultaneously material, imaginative and social (Walsh, 2018: 476).…”

“…Most research on material culture focuses on the home and its immediate environs (see the overviews of Miller, 1998Miller, , 2001Dant, 1999;Reimer and Leslie, 2004). This generalisation also applies to the rich stream of research on migrants' homemaking practices, with examples drawn from a wide range of geographical contexts, reflecting in turn the huge variety of migratory phenomena around the world (for some examples, see Meijering and Lager, 2014;Tolia-Kelly, 2004;Walsh, 2006Walsh, , 2018; and the many case-study chapters on older-age migrants and home in Walsh and Näre, 2014). Whilst we do not ignore the 'home scale' in the research reported in this paper, we deliberately broaden our scoping of materialities in two directions.…”

Ageing strategically: On migration, care, and diversity in later life

“…For return migrants to Southern Europe, in particular, there seems to be a nostalgia for Mediterranean family forms and care relations that have not yet been completely lost in this geography of the world (see Gualda & Escrivá, ). For these migrants, as the Azoreans who return, care is positioned in the “south,” and productive work in the “north.” Imaginaries and feelings of physical and emotional security have also been presented as potentiating a desire to return home, especially in contexts of (unforeseen) bodily changes, impairment, and recognition of life finitude (Walsh, ). A yearning for spatial and social familiarity and homophily in later life embodied, for example, in the ability to be cared for in one's native language and/or cultural milieu may also pose a significant appeal for mobility close to or in later life (Oliver, Blythe, & Roe, ).…”

Analysing migrants' ageing in place as embodied practices of embedding through time: ‘Kilburn is not Kilburn any more’

“…As the older generation ‘back home’ die off, migrants' closest relatives may be in the destination country, creating significant ties to particular places (Buffel, 2017). Although there is increasing research on return migration in later life (Hunter, 2011; Walsh, 2018; Zontini, 2015), our paper focuses on migrants who have not returned and instead remain in the destination society in advanced older age. Clearly, the transnational lens is important, and our participants had networks of family and friends in other countries; nonetheless, we want to understand their everyday negotiations of the local places where they currently reside.…”