The transformation of communities through emigration: care provision, inter-ethnic relations and the agency of older people ‘left behind’

Abstract

Rapid population ageing and significant international migration are demographic trends which increasingly intersect and contribute to far-reaching transformations of social networks and local communities. In academic literature, the focus has more often been on the impact of migration on receiving communities, be it around issues of social integration, assimilation or conflict, or changes to labour markets, not least in health and social care sectors. Where the perspective of the sending communities has been considered at all, the emphasis has often been quite narrowly on ‘left behind’ individuals and their households. There is a relative wealth of studies examining deficits of care and support for old and young family members ‘left behind’, on grandparents’ parenting roles and on remittances. These studies have often inadvertently created the impression both of non-migrants as passively absorbing the impacts of family members’ emigration, and of sending communities as being relatively static. On the whole there has been a lack of consideration of wider impacts on social and community networks in sending countries, and of the agency of those ‘left behind’ in transforming and re-creating networks that have been disrupted by emigration.
This paper will draw on qualitative interviews and ethnographic observations among a German-speaking minority in Romania (the Siebenbürger Sachsen or Transylvanian Saxons), which experienced dramatic outmigration to Germany following the collapse of communism in 1990. The research, which focused on the impact of emigration on support and care networks, will argue not only that sending communities are profoundly affected by emigration, but that it is the older generation of non-migrants who are significant in effecting change. The older Germans who remained in Romania have been active agents of transformation in their local communities by taking on key roles which previously would have been filled by younger persons. This involvement transcends the domestic domain of surrogate parenting or working the land to include being active in political organisations, the Lutheran church, preservation and promotion of tangible and intangible Saxon heritage in Romania, and welfare provision.
This last point is pertinent to discussions around migration, ageing and care: while far-reaching emigration of younger generations undeniably creates gaps in local support and care networks, our research shows that these gaps are often filled through the active engagement of the older generation, rather than via passive reliance on remittances or local kin. In the Romanian communities we studied, older people are pillars of local welfare provision via visiting services, meals on wheels, fundraising or hands-on provision of care to frail elders. We uncovered an important transnational dimension to this, as ‘left behind’ elders maintain and strengthen transnational links between Romania and Germany which in turn act as magnets and conduits for financial and social capital from Germany. These links are cultivated through regular visits to family and friends in Germany and by actively preserving German cultural capital in Romania which attracts visitors and investment from Germany. Older people’s agency is further manifested in the ways in which they have actively and creatively transformed their local networks of support. Networks which were heavily based on family ties and neighbourly relations with fellow Germans have become strongly inter-ethnic in nature following mass emigration. Via creatively transformed cultural and economic practices, older Saxons’ support and care networks today rely heavily on their younger Romanian neighbours in ways that attest to communities’ ability to reinvent themselves through continuity and change.

More information

Identifiers

ORCID for Elisabeth Schröder-Butterfill: orcid.org/0000-0002-5071-8710

Catalogue record

Export record