Introduction: Uncertain Biographies? A Focus on Migrants’ Life Courses

This book focuses on the uncertainties revealed by migrants’ biographies whose shapes are less conventional or patterned, while their family, work, and educational careers are simultaneously more fragmented and intermingled. As Gardner (Age, Narrative and Migration: The Life Course and Life Histories of Bengali Elders in London. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2002) contends, there is a more pressing need to address the meaning and shape of life course in migrants’ case. The chapters ask therefore: What challenges migrants and returnees face when trying to make sense of their life courses after years of experience in other countries with different age norms and cultural values? How can they reconcile competing cultural expectations of both origin and destination societies with regard to the timing of transition between roles in order to provide a meaningful account of their life course?