In this week’s chapter our authors, Elias Chaccour and Tamara Daly, look at what it actually means to grow older across borders, focusing on diasporic families living between Lebanon and Canada. Drawing on existing research, the authors explore how ageing is shaped by both Eastern and Western cultural norms, care systems, and expectations around family and the role of the state.
They start with a key question: what happens when older adults are ageing “in between” countries and cultures, rather than fully in one or the other? To unpack this, they introduce the idea of cultural liminality essentially, the experience of navigating multiple, and sometimes conflicting, ways of understanding care. In many Eastern contexts, care is deeply tied to family responsibility, while in Western systems, there’s often more reliance on formal, state-supported services.
They highlight real tensions, families may feel a strong obligation to provide care, but migration, distance, and shifting norms make that harder to sustain. At the same time, formal systems don’t always reflect cultural expectations or lived realities.
What this chapter does really well is remind us that ageing isn’t one-size-fits-all. It’s shaped by culture, policy, and family dynamics and if we’re serious about supporting older adults, we need approaches that actually reflect the complexity of transnational lives.
To read more, you can find the full chapter on the Bristol University Press Digital platform.
Imagine Aging 
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