This talk concerns living experiences of ageing, transnational family care, and border regimes in the context of displacement. Drawing from multi-sited ethnographic research among the East Timorese, I discuss how older adults cope with family separation and life in exile, their aspirations, when and how transnational care becomes ‘on hold’, and how they deal with the impossibility of meeting intergenerational and cultural obligations. The talk examines care through the lens of ‘circulation’ and attends to the asymmetries entailed in intergenerational relationships and border regimes in the waysthey shape (and are shaped by) transnational care exchanges. In the context of ‘ageing in exile’, it is essential to understand older people’s narratives as they are linked with the ambivalences of other family members across generations. Forms of immobility withholding or limiting care can transcend physical borders, including the social and emotional boundaries conflict-divided communities build against one another over time. These imaginary borders require us to think about how precarious familial relations affect understandings of transnational care amid enduring legacies of violence.
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