Session 7: Generations in Context

1st Global Conference

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

The paper is dedicated to the problem of historical generations in Russian society and culture of the XIX century. I consider generations in the XIX century as some “imagined communities” because people were connected by common cultural space, historical events and cultural representations. Separation and definition of generation could be a way of formation of cultural or political identity in Imperial Russia. The specific generation discourse created a new reality for perception of Past, comprehension of Present and building of Future. Russian intellectuals often translated their representations about key opposition “oldness – newness” using the opposition of generations, for example “fathers – sons”. It’s extremely important to research the different meanings of concept “generation” in the context of Russian culture.

The main subjects are the generation of the “Age of Reason” (which was connected with the rule of Catherine the Great) and the generation of 1812 (Great Patriotic War). Famous Russian historian V. Kluchevsky defined this case of the generation gap: “Fathers were Russian who wished to become French and their sons were French who wished to become Russian”. Thus, generation of sons was perceived as a sign of formation of a new national identity, new system of values.

Another case of the generation gap was the gap between “fathers and sons” in the years of the “Great Reforms” in the second half of the XIX century.  The famous literary embodiment of this phenomenon is novel “Fathers and children” written by I. Turgenev. “Young Russia” became a symbol of revolutionary changes in Russian Empire.

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The Mannheimnian concept of generation provides both illumination and difficulty in explaining how common historical experiences during formative years could shape individuals who experienced them into a self-conscious and historically distinct group. Although rejected by sociologists of the life course as polysemous, the Mannheimnian concept nevertheless offers greater agency in understanding the distinctive behaviour and consciousness of members of a particular generation than the preferred concept of birth cohort by life course sociologists. The Mannheimnian concept allows us to account for social change between generations as well as lifelong stability of behaviour of particular generations. Importantly, as members of a generation define and interpret their historical situations against other generations, the state and the changing social landscape, the concept of generation is not reducible to reified historical time. Rather, a generation is formed by its members attributing social meanings and referents to particular historical time and place.

By stressing agency, this revitalized concept shows how social actors construct and defend their generational identity against other claimants to their generational entitlements. To illustrate this, the Xiagang (layoff) generation in contemporary China is used.

The Xiagang generation is a classification used in the popular and official discourses to describe state workers, from a number of birth cohorts, who were made redundant. These workers are said to have experienced common historical events which made them share a similar social fate. However, upon closer inspection, it is clear that earlier cohorts in fact differ qualitatively from latter ones and have suffered greater political grievances. Nevertheless, the younger cohorts are determined to present themselves as part of the earlier cohorts to wrest more concessions from the state. The state in defining the younger cohorts as the Xiagang generation hopes to dilute the specific grievances of the older ones. Through these dynamics, the Xiagang generation is constructed.

The full complexity of human ageing is best understood through a biopyschosocial perspective of developmental changes as the individual moves through different life stages in a given society over a given time period. This paper describes the subjective definitions of successful ageing by older Chinese Malaysians living in the district of Seremban, Negeri Sembilan. Repeated qualitative interviews were conducted by the lead author with 28 informants aged between 60 to 93 years old (M = 70.6, SD = 8.904) over a period of five months in 2003. Accessed through the ‘snowball’ method, older men (82.1%) and older women of Chinese descent (Hakka (42.9%), Cantonese (17.9%), Hokkien (17.9%), Teochew, Kwangsi and Hainanese) were interviewed at their residence or workplace. Two-third of the informants were born in Peninsular Malaysia (71.4%), while the rest were foreign born. Using a constructivist approach, life history narratives pieced together from the semi-structured interviews were audiotaped and transcribed for data analysis. Variants to questions such as “How do you define successful ageing” and “What makes a good old age?” were also included in the interview guide. Thematic analysis of the data showed that the informants held multidimensional views of successful ageing, some of whom called upon past personal achievements and highlighted the need for generativity in later life. Others, however, were resistant towards the notion of ‘success’ in old age. While there was a broad consensus on what constitutes a ‘good old age’ – health, security, filial piety, enjoying the little joys in life and a good death, different informants have different priorities. In conclusion, discussion about the meaning of successful ageing provides cultural insights for an ideal old age. Identifying the compelling criterion of well being in later life can help researchers to understand what is truly important to the minority aged.