Linked Lives - Elder Care, Migration, and Kinship in Sri Lanka

When youth shake off their rural roots and middle-aged people migrate for economic opportunities, what happens to the grandparents left at home? Linked Lives invites readers into homes in a Sri Lankan Buddhist village to find out how elders face the challenges of a rapidly globalizing world.

List of contents

List of Illustrations

1          Introduction               

2          Chaos Flower: The Meaning of Family                     

3          Weighing Financial Opportunities: Migration, Remittances, or Help from the Hand?        

4          Exchanging Assets for Care: Pensions and the Transfer of Property              

5          A Youngest Son Called "Hope": Virilocal Ultimogeniture and the Ancestral Home          

6          Health and Illness: Aging, Self, and Bodily Care                             

7          Shelter or Shame? Old Folks' Homes

8          Rebirth: Buddhism, Almsgivings and the Transmigration of Souls                          

9          On Beginnings and Endings  

Acknowledgments

Notes

Bibliography  

Index

About the Author

 

About the author

MICHELE RUTH GAMBURD is professor of anthropology at Portland State University, Oregon.

Summary

Provides readers with intimate glimpses into homes in a Sri Lankan Buddhist village, where elders wisely use their moral authority and their control over valuable property to assure that they receive both physical and spiritual care when they need it.

Product details

• Authors: Michele Ruth Gamburd
• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 30.11.2020
• EAN: 9781978815315
• ISBN: 978-1-978815-31-5
• No. of pages: 206
• Series: Global Perspectives on Aging
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Religion/theology > Other religions; Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Medicine > General; Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > Sociological theories