Transnational Aging Carers: On Transformation of Kinship and Citizenship in the Context of Migration among Bulgarian Muslims in Spain

Abstract

This article focuses on “transnational aging careers,” a group of elderly migrants who are in constant movement between social contexts, families, and states. Drawing on a case of Bulgarian Muslim migrants in Spain, I look into the ruptures in the structure of care arrangements, kin expectations, and family relations, which migration triggers. I suggest that these transformations, albeit subtle, lead to reformulation of the fabric of the family. In this way, transnational care-motivated mobility affects future security based on kin reciprocity. At the same time, migration disrupts aging careers’ social citizenship both in Bulgaria and in Spain by limiting or even excluding them from state welfare support. I argue that these two lines of transformation, kinship and citizenship, result in new forms of gender and intergenerational inequalities. Furthermore, their intersection leads to a move from welfare to kinfare, which not only affects present arrangements between migrants, but also entails future insecurities.