Ethnomorality of Care
Migrants and their Aging Parents
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Book Description
What happens when the parents of migrants age and need care in mobile and aging societies? Ethnomorality of Care acts as a window in sharing how physical distance challenges family-centered elderly care by juxtaposing transnational families with non-migrant families.
A novel approach that explores intentions and moral beliefs concerning elderly care alongside practical care arrangements, Ethnomorality of Care presents a concept of care which recognizes how various factors shape the experience of care, including: national, regional, and local contexts, economic inequalities, gender, care and migration regimes. Based on the findings of a multi-sited research carried out between 2014 and 2017 in Poland and the UK, this perceptive volume also seeks to demonstrate how researchers and practitioners can use ethnomorality of care approach to examine non-migrant families and other types of care.
Helping readers to better understand the lived experience of care receivers and givers beyond kinship care, Ethnomorality of Care will appeal to graduate students, researchers, policy makers and care practitioners interested in fields such as migration studies, transnational studies and social and cultural gerontology.
Table of Contents
List of Figures
Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Ethnomorality of care: theoretical framework
What is care? From the existing approaches to ethnomorality of care
Inner diversity of care
Care in relationships
Process and agency in care
Local contexts and cultures of care
Care as a morally-informed concept
Care - migration nexus
Long distance care provision and emotional care
Delegation of care tasks and coordination of care activities
Cultural differences between the place of origin and the migration destination
Ethnomorality of care
Towards an emic definition of care
Conclusions – care-contact continuum
Chapter 3: How to study ethnomorality of care? Research methodology
Multi-sited transnational research
Mixed-method research
Monographic study of Kluczbork and Końskie
Quantitative components of the research
Ethnographies of local care regimes
Researching care through in-depth interviews
Recruiting interviewees from Kluczbork and Końskie in the UK
Benefits and challenges of matched sample in research on transnational families
Data analysis
Ethical issues in researching elderly care
Chapter 4: Main actors of care and local care regimes in two studied locations
Care actors
Polish care regime
Local care regimes
Family
Public institutions
Market
Third sector
Informal non-familial individuals
Transnationalization of local care regimes
Conclusions
Chapter 5: Care as a part of moral beliefs on old age
Norms as a part of the Polish care culture
Normative beliefs on care for the elderly people in the two towns
Normative discourse on care in the old age
Values as a basis of beliefs on family care provision…
…and its morally justified limitations
Beliefs on the quality of institutional care provision
Moral dilemmas regarding the financing and organization of institutional care
Migration-driven changes in beliefs on care
The place of caregiving in the normative beliefs on the old age
Conclusions
Chapter 6: Care intentions – envisaging elderly care
Declarations of care commitment
Excuses and justifications
Local siblings as default caregivers
The moral equation of care
Resentment
Appeals to migrants’ well-being
Appeals to parents’ well-being
Appeal to the good quality of institutional care
"Whatever will be, will be" and wishful thinking (performatives)
Conclusions
Chapter 7: Typology of care arrangements
Limited care
Emotional support
Material support: emotional gifts
Material support: instrumental gifts
Financial support
Personal assistance
Loose network of care
Sociability in later life
Networks of "latent" actors
Collaboration, division of tasks and coordination within networks
Dense network of care
Health condition, intermediary types and type-switching
Diversity of dense networks of care
Role of public in-home care services in the networks of care
Principal care provider
Familial principal care provider
Every day of frailty
Health condition – diseases, frailty and suffering
Daily care tasks
The experience of hands-on daily care
Engagement of other social actors
Migrants in families of frail and dying parents
Institutional principal care provider
Nursing home as a shelter
Nursing home as a social milieu
Coordination within the institution
The role of family and close non-familial individuals
Conclusions
Chapter 8: Adding a temporal dimension: Care sequences and flows
Care sequences
Intensification of care arrangement
The same care arrangement in spite of higher levels of dependency
Reduced or less complex care
Occasional intensification of care arrangement
Seasonal sequence of care arrangements
Care flows
Personal care provided by the elder adults
Personal care provided for the grandchildren abroad
Personal care for an adult child
Material care provided by the elder adults
Financial care provided by the elder adults
Emotional care provided by the elder adults
Conclusions
Chapter 9: Ethnomoralities of care – Conclusions
From ethnomorality to ethnomoralities
Regional differences in the ethnomoralities of care
Socio-economic differences in the ethnomoralities of care
Gender differences in the ethnomoralities of care
Ethnomoralities of care and intergenerational solidarity in the families
Application of ethnomorality of care perspective in future research
Future: Brexit and the elderly care in transnational Polish families
References:
Author(s)
Biography
Agnieszka Radziwinowiczówna is Assistant Professor and Project Manager at the Centre of Migration Research at the University of Warsaw, Poland
Anna Rosinska-Kordasiewicz is a Research Fellow at the Centre of Migration Research at the University of Warsaw, Poland
Weronika Kloc-Nowak is a Researcher at the Centre of Migration Research at the University of Warsaw, Poland
Reviews
This book is a highly original exploration of the complex negotiations of moral and practical issues faced by transnational families with ageing relatives. Through the skillful analysis of the multifaceted interrelations of beliefs, intended actions and actual practices of care we get a better understanding of the moral, relational and political challenges to local, national and transnational care arrangements. Ethnomorality of Care provides a much needed cohesive perspective in times of ageing migrating societies.
Bernhard Weicht is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Innsbruck and the author of The Meaning of Care.
This excellent and fascinating book breaks new intellectual ground developing the concept of the ethnomorality of care to extend understanding of what Polish families think about, intend to do about and actually do about the care of ageing family members in the context of high rates of outward migration and low levels of state provision for elder care. Based on an ambitious research design composed of surveys, indepth interviews and ethnogaphic observations spanning Poland and the UK, Radziwinowiczówna, Rosińska-Kordasiewicz and Kloc-Nowak offer the reader a rich body of data, which is presented in an eminently readable manner. Their insightful analysis will have resonance beyond Poland, particularly in other Central and Eastern European countries experiencing similar challenges related to rapid population ageing, high rates of emigration and social and economic transition.
Majella Kilkey is Reader in Social Policy at the University of Sheffield and editor of Family Life in An Age of Migration and Mobility. Global Perspectives through the Life Course.
The authors of this study are after a[n] all-encompassing analytical concept, one that captures ‘care as outstretched between lived social norms defined in moral terms (moral beliefs), care intentions and actions (care arrangements)’. For this purpose, they have devised a new term, the ‘ethnomorality of care’ … By exploring the ethnomorality of care in two communities □– the provincial Polish towns of Końskie and Kluczbork –□the authors sought to assess how well their members were able to put into practice the types and level of care presented as ideal. The inhabitants of these communities overwhelmingly declared their support for care by – and within – families. However as the authors discovered, changing economic and social conditions, such as deindustrialisation, increased female labour force participation and migration, challenged families’ ability to adhere to this norm, despite paying lip service to it.
Sonya Michel is Professor Emerita at the University of Maryland and editor of Women, Migration, and the Work of Care: The United States in Comparative Perspective and Race, Ethnicity and Welfare States: An American Dilemma? Book review appeared in the International Journal of Care and Caring.