Aspiring in Later Life
Movements Across Time, Space, and Generations

Megha Amrith (Edited by), Victoria K. Sakti (Edited by), Dora Sampaio (Edited by), Dumitrita Lunca (Contributions by), Lisa Johnson (Contributions by), Erdmute Alber (Contributions by), Cati Coe (Contributions by), Harmandeep Kaur Gill (Contributions by), Alfonso Otaegui (Contributions by), Julia Pauli (Contributions by), Nele Wolter (Contributions by), Susan Reynolds Whyte (Contributions by)

9781978830400

Paperback / softback, published 14 July 2023

204 pages, 1 bw, 7 color, 2 tables
23.5 x 15.6 x 1.3 cm, 0.045 kg

"A welcome addition to the study of migration and aging, this volume explores ambition, intimacy, and other aspirations as elders envision a good life and craft new vistas in later years. Ethnographically vivid fieldwork draws the reader into the uncertainties and elations of intergenerational households of transmigrants, returnees, and refugees." 
  - Michele Ruth Gamburd (author of Linked Lives: Elder Care, Migration, and Kinship in Sri Lanka) “This important volume advances the idea that people do have aspirations all through the life course and that we need to know more about their thoughts, choices, and how they dynamically engage with cultural scripts about aging."
  - Sherylyn Briller (professor of anthropology at Purdue University)

In our highly interconnected and globalized world, people often pursue their aspirations in multiple places. Yet in public and scholarly debates, aspirations are often seen as the realm of younger, mobile generations, since they are assumed to hold the greatest potential for shaping the future. This volume flips this perspective on its head by exploring how aspirations are constructed from the vantage point of later life, and shows how they are pursued across time, space, and generations. The aspirations of older people are diverse, and relate not only to aging itself but also to planning the next generation’s future, preparing an "ideal" retirement, searching for intimacy and self-realization, and confronting death and afterlives. Aspiring in Later Life brings together rich ethnographic cases from different regions of the world, offering original insights into how aspirations shift over the course of life and how they are pursued in contexts of translocal mobility.

This book is also freely available online as an open-access digital edition.​

Download the open access book here.

Introduction 1
Megha Amrith, Victoria K. Sakti, and Dora Sampaio