Time and Migration : How Long-term Taiwanese Migrants Negotiate Later Life

Winner of the Richard Kalish Innovative Publication Book Award from the Gerontological Society of America, and Winner of the Outstanding Publication Book Award of the American Sociological Association's Aging and Life Course Section.

Based on longitudinal ethnographic work on migration between the United States and Taiwan, Time and Migration interrogates how long-term immigrants negotiate their needs as they grow older and how transnational migration shapes later-life transitions. Ken Chih-Yan Sun develops the concept of a "temporalities of migration" to examine the interaction between space, place, and time. He demonstrates how long-term settlement in the United States, coupled with changing homeland contexts, has inspired aging immigrants and returnees to rethink their sense of social belonging, remake intimate relations, and negotiate opportunities and constraints across borders. The interplay between migration and time shapes the ways aging migrant populations reassess and reconstruct relationships with their children, spouses, grandchildren, community members, and home, as well as host societies. Aging, Sun argues, is a global issue and must be reconsidered in a cross-border environment.

Ken Chih-Yan Sun is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Criminology at Villanova University.