Return to Sender: Remittances, Communication and Family Conflict

Abstract

Chapters 3 and 4 focused on the French context of the hostel residents' lives. The current chapter and the one which follows it will connect to the context of origin. In this present chapter I will discuss the relationships which these 'geographically single' men have with their 'left behind' families, before proceeding in Chap. 6 to the question of hometown development initiatives which some hostel residents engage in. Turning to family first, I have already noted the extent to which the biographical particularity of being geographically single is implicated in hostel residents' difficult passage to retirement and the dilemma they face regarding return, notably as regards their reduced access to sources of informal care within their families. The present chapter shows how certain unexpected developments in transnational family relationships also influence the mobility of the older hostel residents and their return decision-making after retirement. These developments are grouped under three themes: