Julia Popcheva presented the paper “When Grandmother is Babysitting: Childcare Mobility of Middle-aged and Senior Women“ at the V-th International Conference of Multilocality “Territorialities of Multilocality” that took place in Sofia, Bulgaria on Nov 25-26, 2021. The study revealed the sustainable tradition of grandmothers’ active inclusion in childcare process and its adaptation to the different migration models of separated families. It presented the strategies of middle-aged and senior women in relation to childcare mobility and explored the multilocal lifestyle of ‘Mobile Grandma’ who was ready to live no matter the place, travel no matter the distance, but to be present where appreciated and called out. Different mobility patterns towards Bulgaria and out, reasons for constant returns back ‘home’, and models of (dis)adaptation have been discussed. It was notable that grandmother – grandchildren relations appeared to be equally intensive not only in the case when children lived abroad and the grandmothers were in Bulgaria, but also when middle-aged women were in migration and their grandchildren remained left-behind.
The survey has been conducted during the period 2019 – 2021 both in Bulgaria and abroad (particularly in Italy, Spain and France), relying on classic and virtual methods of ethnography.