Shifting duties: becoming ‘good daughters’ through elder care practices in transnational families from Kerala, India

Abstract

This article investigates the influence of international migration on the filial norms of elder care in transnational families of Syrian Christian nurses from Kerala, South India. We suggest that exploring transnational elder care practices brings to light complex changes in gender dynamics within kin relations. Using the material semiotic approach, we analyze care in terms of everyday practices in which not just people, but also technologies are involved as active participants. We argue that as they are tied to international migration, money and information and communication technologies (ICTs) co-shape new norms of filial care by transforming the normative expectations of ‘good daughters’. This article reveals how among Keralite transnational nurse families, ‘good daughters’ may increase their bargaining power with their in-laws, specifically in relation to caring for their own parents, and how this may also influence the position of men as husbands and sons-in-law.