Paper short abstract:

Drawing from research in Greece on the biosocial experience of aging during the COVID-19 pandemic the paper aims to discuss how pre-existing care patterns and relations within and between generations are reproduced and/or shifted in light of generational tensions produced in the pandemic context.

Paper long abstract:

The Greek society has been studied and portrayed as characterized by stable bonds between generation members which nurture interdependent care relations (emotional, economic, practical, household). Ιn the context of the pandemic the “older generation” was targeted from the onset as the most vulnerable and “to be taken care of” by the state and by the younger generations. While the younger ones were advised to act responsibly in order to save the lives of the elders, the older generation was advised to stay home and in due course was given vaccine prioritization. Thus, during the last years different generations have become more visibly separated and more tangibly distinct in terms of vulnerability(ies), responsibility(ies), mobility(ies) and accessibility(ies). At the same time expert’s discourses and governmental measures have contributed to a homogenization of the different generations (defined by specific age limits), both in relation to an implied, within each generation uniformity, and in relation to the differences between generations. The aim of this paper is to discuss to what extend and in what ways pre-existing care patterns within and between generations are reproduced and/or shifted in light of the generational tensions produced in the pandemic (crisis) context, further reproducing dominant representations linked to the different generations and their relations or creating new ones. In other words, we ask what aspects of the pandemic crisis unfolding in the neoliberal context of care are seen to be having transformational power in the construction of generational difference and in intergenerational relations.