This book examines the increasing evidence of international retirement migration (IRM) to countries of the Global South. IRM to countries of the Global South points to the increasing global interconnectedness of aging in relatively affluent countries and raises critical questions about its interrelations with global inequalities. This book provides a critical analysis of these global interrelations and their intertwinements with global inequalities and addresses the complex and multi-layered dimensions and implications of this development. It highlights the (ambiguous) everyday lives of retirement migrants in the countries of destination, and the severe impacts on the destination countries that are marked by processes of recolonization, and the reproduction, enhancement and reconfiguration of social inequalities. The growing retirement industry that capitalizes on retirement migration exploiting global differences and structural disadvantages of countries in the Global South is another integral part of this book.
Introduction: Retirement migration to the Global South. Global
inequalities and entanglements.- Part I: Migrating to the Global South.
Making sense of change, differences and social inequalities.- In search of a
place like me. Making sense of character, boundaries and later-life mobility
pathways in Southeast Asia.- Coloniality and Retirement Migration to the
Global South.- A "Mexican Home". Defining Belonging Through Taste Among
Retired Migrants in Chapala, Mexico.- Part II: Retirement migrants and their
relationships with the local population: Dominations and ambiguities.- Social
relationships of retirement migrants in Kenya with the local population. On
devaluation practices, re-education efforts, and disappointments.- Between
heaven and hell: Love, Sex and Intimacy International retirement migration
of older men to Thailand.- Transnational social relationships of
international retirement migrants in Morocco. Atypology.- Part III:
Intertwinements of international retirement migrations: The state, markets
and aging populations.- International Living (and Dying). U.S. Retirement
Migration to Mexico.- Falling through the net of social protection. The
precarity of retirement migrants in Thailand.- Care as right and care as
commodity. Positioning international retirement migration in Thailands old
age care regime.- Looking back to go forward: a comparative engagement with
International Retirement Migration in the Global South.
Cornelia Schweppe, PhD, is a Full Professor of Social Pedagogy at the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz (Germany), Institute of Education.
