Transnational grannies: The changing family responsibilities of elderly African Caribbean-born women resident in Britain

This paper explores the role and position of grandmothers in African-Caribbean families resident in Britain. The data used for this paper comes fromm a sample of 180 life-history interviews collected in 1995-1996 from three generations of Caribbean-origin people living in Britain and the Caribbean. Findings from this research suggest that African-Caribbean grandmothers resident in Britain have come to play a less active role within their immediate family compared to earlier historical periods. At the same time however, these grandmothers have come to take on a more a transnational emissary role for their family and kin located throughout North America and Europe. Caribbean-born grandmothers appear to be using more modern means for fulfilling certain traditional tasks like child shifting, story telling or acting as a social safety net. Using their agency African Caribbean-born grandmothers have been able to carve out new niches for themselves despite changes in family structure brought about by migration and settlement patterns in Britain.