Chapter 7. State Bureaucracy and the Elderly West Indian
Chapter 8. Conclusion
Audrey Allwood is Visiting Research Fellow in Anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London, where she is undertaking postdoctoral research in Caribbean migrants and successive generations, uncovering notions of belonging and well-being in an era with vast, fast-paced social change.
This volume provides a unique perspective on elderly working-class West Indian migrants in the UK, particularly examining how they negotiate their sense of belonging. Utilizing the life span gaze and including elements of oral history and narrative, this ethnography provides rich insight into the ordinary lives, migratory circumstances, social networks, and interactions with the state as residents in a sheltered housing scheme in Brixton, London. The author further compiles a variety of genealogy charts, providing a uniquely vivid scholarly analysis of the Caribbean migrant experience both in a “place” and through space and time. Ultimately, this work contemplates how communities face change whilst at once developing a local symbolic cultural site, navigating adaptation to new economic and social environments.