Session 2: Elders and the Collectivity

1st Global Conference

Friday 3rd July – Saturday 5th July 2009
Mansfield College, Oxford

The ideal age-friendly community makes sense of ageing by connecting all generations throughout the life course, providing a physical and social environment appropriate for all ages and abilities by promoting and being infused with reciprocal and inclusive language, structures, and services. Under the principles of active aging and the life course perspective, multi-disciplinary course modules were developed to create a body of knowledge in support of the next generation of researchers.  Assisting communities in becoming ‘age-friendly’ may be one of the best ways to optimize health, foster a sense of security, and ensure older adults continued participation in society-all aspects of what the World Health Organization has labeled ‘active ageing’. Course materials are multidisciplinary in approach and consistent with the World Health Organization (WHO) definition of an age-friendly community. Age-friendly is defined in terms of eight domains: outdoor spaces and buildings; transportation; housing, respect and social inclusion; social participation; communication and information; civic participation and employment opportunities; and community support and health services. The interdisciplinary modules are designed at a theoretical level (community development), empirical level (case studies), and practical level (field study) to supplement current course programs and act as the basis for graduate and undergraduate programs offered for course credit.

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Despite the recognition that geographies of ageing are shaped differentially through the lifecourse it seems that  age as an analytic and research construct largely disappears through ‘the middle years’ with research emphasising ‘growing up’ to ‘growing old’. This paper draws on ethnographic consumption research with young elders, to consider the ways ageing is negotiated through generational influences.  Insights from in-depth interviews and participant observation with twelve participants in Manawatu, New Zealand demonstrate how shopping, purchasing and disposal occurs in the context of familial, household, peer and generational relationships. The research reveals how the ways in which processes of distancing and identification with parental choices in consumption practices extend beyond ones childhood years.  Consumption ‘at home’ does not just involve acquiring, using and disposing of objects but is bound in complex social relationships through which ageing identities may be constructed, contested and negotiated. Study participants’ consumption practices and experiences provide insights indicate that it is important to move beyond interpretations of how spaces and the bodies of ‘the ageing’ are disciplined and contained through consumption, to examine the tactics and embodied practices and emotions which may simultaneously confront and co-constitute such interpretations. While it is important to avoid  the reductionism and compartmentalisation which reduces individuals to homogenous categories such as the old, middle aged or young, studying how people, non-human entities and relations are co-constituted in being and becoming ‘aged’ consumers, provides an opportunity to reflect on how these categories have gained theoretical  and practical significance/power across and in particular spaces. It makes visible the work that is done to shape and place them and the moralities attached to them both within the academy and in the everyday lives of those whose stories, actions and existence shape and produce our research.

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This paper reflects on the experience with two very different projects designed to amplify community voices in relation to health service design. Looking back it appears that both projects address two pairs of related questions.

• What makes it harder for some (age) groups to be heard by institutions in society? What makes it harder for some institutions to listen to particular (age) groups?
• What has ageing got to do with being heard? What has being heard got to do with ageing?

Download Draft Conference Paper (pdf)