Scholarly Intersections Event: Time of Migration – How Aging Taiwanese Immigrants Remake Intergenerational Intimacy

Human Development Seminar Series
“Time of Migration: How Aging Taiwanese Immigrants Remake Intergenerational Intimacy”

Based on longitudinal ethnographic work, Time and Migration interrogates how long-term immigrants negotiate their needs as they grow older and how transnational migration shapes later-life transitions. Dr. Sun develops the concept of “temporalities of migration” to examine the interaction between space, place, and time. This work demonstrates how long-term settlement in the US, coupled with changing homeland contexts, has inspired aging immigrants and returnees to rethink their sense of social belonging, remake intimate relations, and negotiate opportunities and constrains across borders. Aging is thus a global issue and must be reconsidered in a cross-border environment.

Ken Chih-Yan Sun, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Villanova University. His major publications include Time and Migration: How Long-term Taiwanese Immigrants Negotiate Later Life (Cornell Univ. Press, 2021) and Transnational Social Protection: Transforming Social Welfare on the Move, co-authored with Peggy Levitt, Erica Dobbs, & Ruxandra Paul (Oxford Univ. Press, 2022).

This event is funded by the CSULB College of Liberal Arts-Scholarly Intersections and co-sponsored by the Departments of Human Development, Asian and Asian American Studies, International Studies, Sociology, and University Honors Program.