Paper short abstract:

Drawing on ethnographic data from Indonesia, this paper unsettles stereotypical representations of older people as either frail or heroic. It does so by examining the negotiation of care and of social identities between older spouses, older and younger volunteers, and past and present selves.

Paper long abstract:

As the convenors of this Panel note, old age is a life-stage marked by immense diversity. This diversity is poorly captured by dominant representations of older people as dependent, vulnerable, or frail. Yet, alternative representations of ‘actively-ageing’, ‘successful’ and agentic older people risk marginalising and devaluing the common human experience of dependence and need. How can we hold these contrasting realities in our sights while at the same time unsettling and challenging the stereotypes which underpin the two extremes?

The study of care observes an arena in which older people’s vulnerability and active agency often come to coexist. This permits a more realistic, empirically grounded examination of the lived experiences of ageing, and the role of representations within these (e.g. of infantilisation, inevitability or culpability of decline, or more positively, of intergenerational interdependence). This paper draws on evidence from an ESRC-funded project on older people’s care networks in Indonesia. Using emerging ethnographic data on older care dependent people, members of their care networks, and community volunteers from five sites across Indonesia, we examine the relationship between care-giving and care-receiving older spouses, care-dependent parents and their adult children, older and younger volunteers, and individuals’ former and present social identities. This allows us to examine the negotiation of care, shifting power dynamics within families and local organisations, and what this reveals about ageing and later life in contemporary Indonesia.

Paper short abstract:

Ageing and older people in general are seldom the focus of development practice, policy or theory. This paper explores ageing across households with different socio-economic backgrounds by focusing on older people’s experiences of education, violence and migration and how these are gendered.

Paper long abstract:

The process of ageing and older people in general are seldom the focus of development practice, policy or theory. This paper seeks to begin a discussion about ageing and development, by exploring the process of ageing across households and families that are variously situated across the socio-economic continuum in a Latin American country. Drawing on a project that seeks to address the consequences that migration has for the migrants’ ageing parents, the paper departs from the main focus of the project to address the various fragments of the interviewees’ life stories and experiences that did not fit the original research frame. Invariably, interviewees talked about their life experiences that were not necessarily linked to their children’s migration. Interviewees talked about their experiences of education, violence and their own histories of migration. These experiences were very gendered.

Taking these three ‘topics’ in turn, the paper will explore how ageing, gender and development are intrinsically linked. The older interviewees’ experiences are here offered as a way of doing justice to the stories they have shared and a way of disrupting what development might mean for older people.

Paper short abstract:

We studied grandfathers’ role in orphan care in Malawi. We found them crucial to their orphaned grandchildren’s daily needs, education, and intergenerational transmission of knowledge and values. Despite this, grandfathers remained largely invisible because of gendered (mis)conceptions of care.

Paper long abstract:

Many grandparents in sub-Saharan Africa are living with millions of orphans created by parental death due to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Little research has considered how grandfathers are caring for orphans. We employed the analytical concept of generative grandfathering to analyse grandfathers’ roles in orphan care in rural communities of Zomba District in southern Malawi. Using ethnography, we engaged children, young people, and adults in multiple participatory research activities, including interviews, focus group discussions, stakeholder meetings, and dissemination meetings, to obtain their views and experiences of orphan care. The findings suggest that although grandfathers’ contributions to orphan care are on the periphery of research and policy concerned with grandparenting in Malawi and other regions of sub-Saharan Africa, grandfathers are incontrovertibly at the epicentre of their orphaned grandchildren’s everyday lives. They are providers for their orphaned grandchildren, support their formal education, and are integral to intergenerational transmission of knowledge and values. Despite performing a myriad of caring roles in the plain sight of their communities, grandfathers remain largely invisible because of gendered (mis)conceptions of care. This highlights the dilemma of grandfathers as ageing men who find themselves in roles not associated with traditional, hegemonic notions of masculinities in their communities.

Paper short abstract:

The paper explores the role of cultural systems in enhancing social inclusion for older persons in Uganda, interrogating the claim that government social assistance empowers them. It argues that the cultural practices have enhanced their inclusion and that the contribution of the SCG is overrated.

Paper long abstract:

Traditionally, older persons in the Ugandan society of Ankole, were taken care of by the young. The Banyankole even have a saying that “Orume kurukura rwonka abaana baarwo”, literary translated as “when a hare grows old, they get milk and sustenance from their children”, meaning that a person’s children were expected to take care of them in their old age. This meant that the elderly, although growing weaker, were not considered useless and were not excluded from the social activities. In fact, they enjoyed special status and privilege in society. This has altered as modern lifestyles have replaced the traditional ones and the traditional values have been eroded over time. The paper explores the role that traditional and cultural systems play in enhancing social inclusion among older persons in Ankole. It also examines the claim that the introduction of the social assistance for the elderly through the Senior Citizens Grant (SCG) by the Ugandan government has helped in reducing the vulnerability of the older persons, enabling them to contribute to the livelihoods of their households and local economies. It argues that the traditional cultural systems have helped to keep older people relevant as repositories of traditional knowledge. The older persons are consulted in cultural matters such as rituals related to birth, child naming, raising children, herbal medicine, marriage customs etc. It also argues that the contribution of the SCG has been overrated, since the amount that is given is too small to make a considerable impact on the household income.