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Kainradl AC. Perspectives on vulnerability from the narratives of older migrants. Z Gerontol Geriatr 2024; 57:272-277. [PMID: 38904845 PMCID: PMC11208271 DOI: 10.1007/s00391-024-02328-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/12/2024] [Accepted: 05/06/2024] [Indexed: 06/22/2024]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Older migrants are considered a vulnerable population group in many ways. Marginalization and social exclusion lead to unequal opportunities for social participation. AIM In order to break down barriers for older migrants, the perspectives of people with migration biographies should be given greater consideration. MATERIAL AND METHODS To this end, the results of an explorative intersectional ethical analysis of care narratives of older migrants are discussed in the light of aging studies research. The focus is on the ethical analysis of five guided interviews with older migrants between 65 and 80 years old, who have migrated from different countries in southeastern Europe. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION In contrast to the prevalent expert perspective, the narratives of the older migrants interviewed revealed not only resistance to vulnerabilization but also multiple negotiations of autonomy and dependency. By making ambivalent narrative and action strategies visible and linking them to narratives of intergenerational care relationships, the significance of care-ethical interpretations of vulnerability and characterization of vulnerability as "a universal, inevitable, and anthropological feature of humanity resulting from the embodied, finite, and socially contingent structure of human existence" [4] can be demonstrated.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anna-Christina Kainradl
- Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Aging and Care (CIRAC), University of Graz, Schubertstraße 23/1, 8010, Graz, Austria.
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Ageing as a driver of progressive politics? What the European Silver Economy teaches us about the co-constitution of ageing and innovation. AGEING & SOCIETY 2022. [DOI: 10.1017/s0144686x22000903] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/07/2022]
Abstract
Abstract
Ageing has become a ubiquitous concern in European policy. Critics have bemoaned that such policies are not so much about older people but rather about finding justification for other policy aims, such as economic growth or technological innovation. However, such critiques do not capture the co-constitutive relationship between ageing and innovation shaping one another. Using the example of the Silver Economy discourse, we show that ageing has not only been reframed under the imperatives of economic and innovation policies, but that ageing itself can also affect those policies. In its formative stages, the Silver Economy was characterised by a number of tensions between, on the one hand, common ageist assumptions about old age and, on the other hand, alternative visions of what ageing could mean as a policy field. However, these potentials have later been domesticated within the broader field of Active and Healthy Ageing. In this Forum Article, we therefore hypothesise what it would mean to take ageing more seriously as a driver of progressive politics as indicated in those formative years of the Silver Economy. Such a speculative take on current old-age policy, we hold, opens up a number of fruitful avenues and new interfaces between critical researchers, practitioners and policy makers interested in driving progressive politics.
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Ishikawa M. Media portrayals of transitions from work to retirement in two ageing societies: the case of ageing baby boomers in Japan and Finland. J Aging Stud 2022; 62:101062. [PMID: 36008032 DOI: 10.1016/j.jaging.2022.101062] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/31/2021] [Revised: 07/18/2022] [Accepted: 07/23/2022] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
Abstract
This article explores media portrayals of the transition from work to retirement under the circumstances of demographic change through a focus on newspaper discussions about ageing baby boomers in Japan and Finland. Due to their shared characteristics as a distinct population group that advances the rapid ageing of the population, media representations of Japanese and Finnish baby boomers during the transitional period to retirement give insight into the social perceptions of retirement and their implications on later life. Manifest content analysis and subsequent thematic analysis identify that the topic of "work, retirement and pension" dominates media discussions in both countries. Analysis also conveys that this topic involves specific themes on three levels: macro level, attitudinal level and behavioural level regarding working, subjective and social perceptions of retirement. Social and cultural differences between Japan and Finland are well accounted for in shaping each theme, which is characterised by even contrasting expressions regarding the extension of working life and attitudes toward work and retirement. However, deeper analysis suggests that the idea that values an active, productive and engaged lifestyle beyond retirement underlies both Japanese and Finnish media discourses. Media discussions in both countries risk creating a discriminatory dichotomy among older people: the Finnish media marginalises those who are out of work and without work-like activities, while the Japanese media tend to exclude those without socially desirable competence.
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Affiliation(s)
- Motoko Ishikawa
- Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of Jyväskylä, Finland; Research Institute of Human Development, Kyoto International Social Welfare Exchange Centre, Japan.
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Leinaweaver JB. Counter-Demography: Situated Caring for the Aged in Andean Peru. Med Anthropol 2022; 41:630-644. [PMID: 34696647 PMCID: PMC9035470 DOI: 10.1080/01459740.2021.1988595] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/20/2022]
Abstract
I argue that non-demographers engage in "counter-demography" - repurposing demographic tools as they interpret and manage local, individual expressions of complex population-level issues. I explore this through a focus on population aging in Peru. Like many developing countries, Peru is in a delicate demographic position where sometimes violent efforts to reduce fertility, and broader processes of modernization and education, have resulted in population aging. In the urban Andes, professional aging-workers (those who labor to support aging individuals) informally reference statistics and data visualizations to highlight their own complex and holistic efforts to support aging people on the ground.
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Abstract
AbstractWhen the social relevance of robotic applications is addressed today, the use of assistive technology in care settings is almost always the first example. So-called care robots are presented as a solution to the nursing crisis, despite doubts about their technological readiness and the lack of concrete usage scenarios in everyday nursing practice. We inquire into this interconnection of social robotics and care. We show how both are made available for each other in three arenas: innovation policy, care organization, and robotic engineering. First, we analyze the discursive “logics” of care robotics within European innovation policy, second, we disclose how care robotics is encountering a historically grown conflict within health care organization, and third we show how care scenarios are being used in robotic engineering. From this diagnosis, we derive a threefold critique of robotics in healthcare, which calls attention to the politics, historicity, and social situatedness of care robotics in elderly care.
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Macia E, Chevé D, Montepare JM. Demographic aging and biopower. J Aging Stud 2019; 51:100820. [PMID: 31761093 DOI: 10.1016/j.jaging.2019.100820] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/13/2019] [Revised: 10/03/2019] [Accepted: 10/05/2019] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
Abstract
The aging of the world's population is an unprecedented recent phenomenon in human history, as for millennia - at least from the Neolithic to the mid-18th century - the age structures of human populations have changed little. The question posed by this anthropological perspective seems at first sight quite simple: how did this aging come to be? We will see that from a demographic point of view, the answer seems trivial: a basic shift in population structure is at the origin. However, we will go further by exploring the historical and political conditions of this transition by mobilizing the Foucauldian notion of biopower. We argue that this notion has the heuristic advantage of linking several core processes at work in the demographic transition. Although our analysis focuses on France to illustrate the notion of biopower in Foucault's work, we also discuss several non-western societies to explain why demographic aging is inevitable across the globe due to biopower strategies and "dispositifs". This article also constitutes a reflexive analysis on our practices as gerontologists and on the widespread "successful aging" concept.
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Affiliation(s)
- Enguerran Macia
- UMI 3189 Environnement, Santé, Sociétés (Université Cheikh Anta Diop/CNRS/Université de Bamako/CNRST Burkina-Faso), Faculté de Médecine - Secteur Nord, 51, Bd. Pierre Dramard, 13016 Marseille, France.
| | - Dominique Chevé
- UMR 7268 Anthropologie Bio-culturelle, Droit, Ethique et Santé (Aix-Marseille Université/CNRS/EFS), Faculté de Médecine - Secteur Nord, 51, Bd. Pierre Dramard, 13016 Marseille, France
| | - Joann M Montepare
- RoseMary B. Fuss Center for Research on Aging and Intergenerational Studies, Lasell College, 1844 Commonwealth Avenue, Newton, MA 02466, USA
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Abstract
AbstractWhilst representations of old age and older people in traditional media have been well documented, examinations of such representations within social media discourse are still scarce. This is an unfortunate omission because of the importance of social media for communication in contemporary society. In this study, we combine content analysis and discourse analysis to explore patterns of representation on Twitter around the terms ageing, old age, older people and elderly with a sample of 1,200 tweets. Our analysis shows that ‘personal concerns/views’ and ‘health and social care’ are the predominant overall topics, although some topics are clearly linked with specific keywords. The language often used in the tweets seems to reinforce negative discourses of age and ageing that locate older adults as a disempowered, vulnerable and homogeneous group; old age is deemed a problem and ageing is considered something that needs to be resisted, slowed or disguised. These topics and discursive patterns are indeed similar to those found in empirical studies of social perceptions and traditional media portrayal of old age, which indicates that social media and Twitter in particular appears to serve as an online platform that reproduces and reinforces existing ageist discourses in traditional media that feed into social perceptions of ageing and older people.
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Dalmer NK. A logic of choice: Problematizing the documentary reality of Canadian aging in place policies. J Aging Stud 2019; 48:40-49. [PMID: 30832929 DOI: 10.1016/j.jaging.2019.01.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/31/2018] [Revised: 01/08/2019] [Accepted: 01/11/2019] [Indexed: 10/27/2022]
Abstract
The home environment is pivotal in the lives of older people, intimately intertwined with one's sense of self and belonging. Aging in place (AIP), continuing to live in the same or familiar place or community for as long as possible not only fulfills a neoliberal and economic imperative but aligns with the wishes of a majority of older Canadians, who prefer to age in place. Despite policies' contributions to differing experiences of aging, the potential bearing of the narratives embedded within AIP or age-friendly policies remains unexamined. Within an institutional ethnography method of inquiry, this study applied Bacchi's "What's the Problem Represented to be?" (WPR) approach to structure the discovery of governing narratives about familial care work embedded within seven Canadian aging in place policies at the municipal, provincial, and federal level. I analyzed these policies for their role in coordinating the experiences of caring for an older adult who is aging in place in London, Canada's first age-friendly city. Of particular interest for this study is uncovering whether these texts recognize the work, and in particular the information work, of providing care to an older adult who is AIP. The policies' overall focus on self-reliance, independence, and resourcefulness frames aging in place as a process that can and should be responsibly managed. Information is introduced as a helpful tool to secure and preserve older adults' independence and usefulness to their community. The policies' problematizations frame successful aging in place as governed through a logic of choice, where a complex problem is framed as a matter of choice. Ultimately, however, while the policies offer a number of different "choices" for older adults to AIP, a critical unpacking of the problematizations reveals the choice to AIP to be illusory. There is only one option presented in the policies and that is to AIP.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nicole K Dalmer
- Department of Sociology, Otonabee College, Trent University, Room 230, 1600 West Bank Drive, Peterborough, ON K9L 0G2, Canada.
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Shimoni S. ‘Third Age’ under neoliberalism: From risky subjects to human capital. J Aging Stud 2018; 47:39-48. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jaging.2018.10.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/03/2018] [Revised: 10/11/2018] [Accepted: 10/20/2018] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
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Affiliation(s)
- Desmond O'Neill
- Centre for Ageing, Neuroscience and the Humanities, Trinity Centre for Health Sciences, Trinity College Dublin, Tallaght Hospital, Dublin 24, Ireland
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Abstract
Research on the rationing of care to older patients in Britain and America typically focuses on acute care here I consider `chronic care'as illustrated by `community care' in Britain. Adopting a critical sociological approach to dependency and to the construction of `later life,'I argue that chronic care users constitute a class, and that clinical need has played a pivotal role in its development. As this reflects the allocative rationing of care I call into question, the claim made by the current British government that need can provide a benchmark of age justice.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mary Simms
- Faculty of Health and Social Care Sciences, St. George's Hospital Medical School, Cranmer Terrace, Tooting, London, ORE.
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12
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Baby boomers as future care users—An analysis of expectations in print media. J Aging Stud 2015; 34:82-91. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jaging.2015.05.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/17/2014] [Revised: 05/07/2015] [Accepted: 05/07/2015] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
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Zimmermann HP, Grebe H. "Senior coolness": living well as an attitude in later life. J Aging Stud 2013; 28:22-34. [PMID: 24384364 DOI: 10.1016/j.jaging.2013.11.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/19/2013] [Revised: 11/06/2013] [Accepted: 11/06/2013] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
With demographic change becoming an ever more pressing issue in Germany, old age (80+) is currently talked about above all in terms of being a problem. In mainstream discourse on the situation of the oldest old an interpretive framework has emerged that effectively rules out the possibility of people living positively and well in old age. With regard to both individual (personal) and collective (societal) spheres, negative images of old age dominate public debate. This is the starting point for an interdisciplinary research project designed to look at the ways in which people manage to "live well in old age in the face of vulnerability and finitude"--in express contrast to dominant negative perspectives. Based on the results of this project, the present article addresses an attitudinal and behavioral mode which we have coined "senior coolness". Coolness here is understood as both a socio-cultural resource and an individualized habitus of everyday living. By providing an effective strategy of self-assertion, this ability can, as we show, be just as important for elderly people as for anyone else. "Senior coolness" is discussed, finally, as a phenomenon that testifies to the ways elderly people retain a positive outlook on life--especially in the face of difficult circumstances and powerful socio-cultural pressures.
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Affiliation(s)
- Harm-Peer Zimmermann
- Institute of Popular Culture Studies, University of Zurich, Affolternstrasse 56, 8050 Zurich, Switzerland.
| | - Heinrich Grebe
- Institute of Popular Culture Studies, University of Zurich, Affolternstrasse 56, 8050 Zurich, Switzerland.
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Fries CJ. Older adults' use of complementary and alternative medical therapies to resist biomedicalization of aging. J Aging Stud 2013; 28:1-10. [PMID: 24384362 DOI: 10.1016/j.jaging.2013.11.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/21/2012] [Revised: 11/01/2013] [Accepted: 11/01/2013] [Indexed: 10/25/2022]
Abstract
Taking its cue from Estes and Binney's (1989) assertion that individual and subjective views of aging often reflect a hegemony characteristic of biomedicalization, this study assesses the subjective views that a group of older adult users of CAM therapies have of aging, health, healing, and self care. Reflexive sociological interviews with 24 men and women over the age of 55 are used to show how participants use CAM as an embodied means to resist biomedicalization of aging. Four themes emerge as in part explaining the appeal of CAM therapies for older adults: "intergenerational angst"; "iatrogenesis"; "aging as deterioration"; and "optimistic alternatives". In a cultural context in which aging has been transformed into a medical matter, older adults who seek out CAM do so as part of an effort to gain individual control over their aging bodies and health. These findings provide further evidence that older adults have adopted discourses of individual responsibility for health through self care behavior and that the growing trend towards therapeutic pluralism entails both elements of medicalization and demedicalization.
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Affiliation(s)
- Christopher J Fries
- Department of Sociology, 317 Isbister Building, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3T 2N2, Canada
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16
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Stacey BG, Osborne D. Do media help or harm public health? Aust N Z J Public Health 1998; 22:733-4. [PMID: 9848976 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-842x.1998.tb01482.x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/27/2022] Open
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