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- Convenors:
-
Cristina Douglas
(University of Aberdeen)
Cathrine Degnen (Newcastle University, UK)
Send message to Convenors
- Formats:
- Panel
- Mode:
- Online
- Sessions:
- Thursday 18 July, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Madrid
Short Abstract:
This panel aims to understand how ageing is experienced and shaped by more-than-human creatures and entities, and by planetary changes. We invite reflections on how ageing adds to efforts of decolonising anthropology, ageing studies, and to a critique of the Anthropocene.
Long Abstract:
Despite a more-than-human turn over the last decades, anthropological studies of ageing remain, despite their analytical finesse, limited to humanistic approaches. However, ageing is not restricted to humans, nor human ageing lived in ecological isolation. Rather, ageing is entangled and shared across life forms, enmeshed in more- and less-than-human webs of being in the world. Moreover, how ageing may be experienced, both in the global South and North, is profoundly shaped by migration, but this is rarely approached in terms of its other-than-human envelopments and unfolding, such as environmental migration or humanitarian crises generated by climate change.
This panel asks: what can an approach that is not limited to the humanistic alone bring to our understanding of how forms of ageing, care, and harm - both human and other-than-human - are enacted as ways of being in the world? How is ageing experienced, as more- and less-than-human, across borders when anthropocenic and humanitarian issues are of concern and people are on the move? How are technological imaginaries shaping ageing processes, both human and other-than-human, at local and planetary levels? What moralities and imaginaries of ageing are mobilised in narratives of a ‘grey tsunami’ and baby boomer generation, seen as entangled with planetary harm? How is ageing imagined and understood otherwise across the global South and North, in more-than-human practices and forms? How can these contribute to efforts of decolonising anthropology in general and anthropology of ageing in particular, and add to a critique of the Anthropocene?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 18 July, 2024, -Panos Τigkas (University of the Aegean) Aglaia Chatjouli (University of the Aegean)
Paper short abstract:
In times of glocal health crisis, as in the COVID-19 pandemic, elders in Greece became the focus of novel technological entities (biomedical and digital), along with practices of prioritization. We discuss how enhanced care and human-technological entanglements mediated ageing experience.
Paper long abstract:
In times of glocal health crisis, as in the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, and with regards to the ageing experience in the Greek ethnographic context, elders often became the focus of novel globalised technological entities (diagnostics, vaccinations, medical trackings, digitalized communications), along with policies and practices of prioritization (negatively and positively loaded and experienced).
This paper aims at discussing how niches of enhanced care and human-technological entanglements presented in the pandemic context mediated elderly ways of being in the world –a world long lived but at the same time newly imagined– and ways of caring (interpersonally, cross-generationally, biotechnologically and techno-somatically), in relation to local representations of elderly life (drawing from kincare to various forms of ageism), and along with the multiple potentialities and imaginaries of planetary changes.
The above intertwined modalities of care will be discussed bearing in mind how, during the pandemic, the chronic structural deficits within Greek health care and the uneven distribution of vulnerability among different bodies informed the potentialities and limitations of biomedical and digital care initiatives –such as prioritization policies in vaccinations and intense care, digitalized ways of living and caring– further creating new forms of intimacy or/and exclusion. Drawing from elderly experiences and healthcare professional reflections we are urged to critically examine the relation between care and technological practices, imaginings, and moralities as a matter of techno-somatic care materiality, highlighting the interdependencies between human and other-than-human entities and further problematizing the ageing experience in the context of planetary crisis.
Miguel Gomez Hernandez (Monash University)
Paper short abstract:
I explore how AgeTech industries in different countries and older people conceptualise and imagine divergently future ageing lives with technologies. My argument suggests a stronger anthropological focus and intervention in ageing futures.
Paper long abstract:
The conceptualisation of future ageing as a crisis, or also called as ageing tsunami, is eliciting an uncontrolled advent of smart home technologies that will ostensibly care for older adults. A prominent crisis often found in industry reports and bioengineering papers is falling. This crisis is deeply rooted in economic and care considerations to relieve insurance, family carers, healthcare, and governments players which envision falling or ageing demographics as emerging business opportunities to leverage through AgeTech. Yet, the deployment of AgeTech also entails questions such as health and socialisation norms, condescension, surveillance, control, ageism which are often overlooked (let alone asking older people what they think).
At the same time, industries in alternative countries contest AgeTech interventions in North-America, Europe, etc. Alternative industries suggest that ageing within familial setups (common practice in e.g. India or Mexico) or ageing with pets contradict the tenet of the Ageing in Place paradigm that largely relies on wealthy and frail older people living alone. Furthermore, a ‘successful’ deployment of AgeTech in the north(s) might be hampered by the lack of basic internet access in large parts of e.g. Australia or USA.
These arguments are rooted in my PhD fieldwork, which focuses on industry and older people’s conceptualisations of future ageing lives with technologies. My methods include video-ethnographic home tours in older people’s homes, interviews with AgeTech industry experts in different countries drawing on comic-strips, and a review of industry reports. Here, I suggest a stronger anthropological intervention in future AgeTech -beyond a critique.
Shivangi Patel (Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, Delhi)
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines the shifting contours of ageing experiences and intergenerational care circulation in transnational Indian families. It explores the increased usage of ICTs and rising digital market, as other-than-human agents in shaping and re-shaping ageing and care practices.
Paper long abstract:
The proposed paper examines the shifting contours and experience of ageing in the light of increased usage of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) and rising digital market for old age care in India. The paper is contextualized within the framework of the intergenerational care circulation in transnational Indian families. On the one hand increased life longevity and decreasing fertility rates are resulting in a rising proportion of aging populations (Census of India 2011; LASI 2020). On the other hand, post liberalization and globalization of the Indian economy, transnational migration for work has seen a phenomenal rise (Ugargol et al., 2016; Visaria 2001). In a country where elderly care was largely embedded in the patriarchal joint family (Jadhav. et al., 2013), these developments are complicating family based care arrangements for elderly.
In the face of state dispossession of the elderly, market and private institutions are increasingly becoming critical players in the care economy for older persons. More recently, technologically mediated gigified care platforms for elderly care have also emerged to fill the rising care demands of the elderly. Situated within this context, this paper illuminates the experiences of aging in absence of physical care for older persons living alone whose adult children have migrated transnationally. It illustrates the idea of ‘co-presence’ (Baldassar et al. 2016), powered by digital technologies like ICTs and webcams (Ahlin, 2020) and new digital platforms providing care services.
Increasingly there is growing recognition that ICTs and digital platforms are becoming key entities in shaping and re-shaping care practices (Fiast, 1998; Madianou & Miller, 2012b; Nedelcu, 2012). They have been dubbed as ‘technologies of care’ (Wilding 2006) as they generate new possibilities of caring (Hromadzic & Palmberger, 2018), providing advice, sharing stories, and sustaining cultural identities (Nedelcu & Wyss, 2016), expressing emotions across distances (Mendez, Anthony & Guerrero, 2020) and ‘co-creating’ intergenerational virtual spaces (Ahlin & Li, 2019), all in one combined as ways of ageing and care and its future.
References
Ahlin, T. (2020). Frequent callers: “Good Care” with ICTs in Indian Transnational Families. Medical Anthropology, 39(1), 69–82. Routledge publication.
Ahlin, T. & Li, F. (2019). From field sites to field events Creating the field with information and communication technologies (ICTs). Medicine Anthropology Theory, 6(2), 1-24.
Baldassar, L. Nedelcu, M. Merla, L. & Wilding, R. (2016). ICT-based co-presence in transnational families and communities: Challenging the premise of face-to-face proximity in sustaining relationships. Global Networks, 16(2), 133–144.
Census of India. (2011). Report on Post Enumeration Survey.
Faist, T. (1998). Transnational social spaces out of international migration: Evolution, significance, and future prospects. European Journal of Sociology, 39(2), 213-247. Cambridge University Press.
Hromadzic, A. & Palmberger, M. (2018). Care Across Distance: Ethnographic Explorations of Aging and
Migration. Berghahn Books.
Jadhav, A., Sathyanarayana, K. M., Kumar, S. & James, K.S. (2013). Living Arrangements of the Elderly in India: Who lives alone and what are the patterns of familial support? Session 301: Living arrangement and its effect on older people in ageing societies. IUSSP. Busan, Korea.
LASI (Longitudinal Ageing Study in India) Report. (2020). Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India.
Madianou, M. & Miller, D. (2012b). Migration and New Media: Transnational Families and Polymedia. London: Routledge.
Mendez-Luck, C.A., Anthony, K. P., Guerrero, L. R. (2020). Burden and Bad Days Among Mexican-Origin Women Caregivers. J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci, 75(8). 1719-1730.
Nedelcu, M. (2012). Migrants’ New Transnational Habitus: Rethinking Migration Through a Cosmopolitan Lens in the Digital Age. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 38(9), 1339-1356.
Nedelcu, M. & Wyss, M. (2016). ‘Doing family’ through ICT-mediated ordinary co-presence: transnational communication practices of Romanian migrants in Switzerland. Global Networks, 16(2), 202–218.
Ugargol, A. P., Hutter, I., James, K.S. & Bailey, A. (2016). Care Needs and Caregivers: Associations and Effects of Living Arrangements on Caregiving to Older Adults in India. Aging International, 41. 193-213. Springer Publication.
Visaria, P. (2001). Demographics of Aging in India. Economic and Political Weekly. 1967-1975.
Wilding, R. (2006). ‘Virtual’ intimacies? Families communicating across transnational contexts. Global Networks, 6(2), 125–142.
Emma Fàbrega (Universitat de Barcelona) Xavier Garcia Curado (Gamma UX)
Paper short abstract:
This paper aims to analyse how the premature ageing of digital devices influences social conceptions and experiences of old age. Drawing on fieldwork conducted on Spanish coasts, we observe the mutual construction of oldness between British expatriate retirees and digital devices.
Paper long abstract:
This paper aims to analyse how the premature ageing of digital devices, understood as other-than-human actors that participate in the shaping of daily life, influences social conceptions and experiences of old age. The study will focus on the experiences of a group of British expatriate retirees living on Spanish coasts, specifically Costa Brava and Costa del Sol. These individuals, due to their situational, material, and sociocultural conditions, rely on digital devices to fulfil various needs related to their retirement and ageing project abroad; such as communicating with family, consuming content from their home country, seeking information about their host country, and communicating within their communities, among others. In the current epoch of capitalism, characterised by the productivity and consumerism of the digital era, devices are purposely "designed to break" (Bisschop, Hendlin, Jaspers: 2022). Planned obsolescence, as a corporate business policy, causes these devices to transition from being considered "new" – or “young” – to being seen as "old" in a very short period of time. Drawing on Bruno Latour's actor-network theory (2005), we will analyse how the premature ageing of these digital devices, understood as other-than-human actors in a network of social relations, contributes to the social construction of old age (Degnen: 2007 and 2012) and, consequently, to the intersubjective experiences of old age among British expatriate retirees.
Joachim Knab (University of Cologne)
Paper short abstract:
This paper discusses ageing in Namibia's Zambezi Region, exploring diverse frameworks beyond chronological age. It highlights how age emerges from material encounters, discussing practices of determining seniority and juniority, including generational belonging, kinship, education, and wealth.
Paper long abstract:
This paper explores ageing in Namibia's Zambezi Region through an ethnographic case study. I discuss several examples of people's practices of determining who is senior and who is junior in different situations – and where age appears not as the result of a counting mind, but as an emergent property of material encounters of human and more-than-human beings. The area in which I conducted this research is particularly interesting in this respect because of the wide variety of different frameworks available for determining age. For example, there were notions of innate age in terms of belonging to a generation, i.e. a cohort of individuals born around the same time, and notions of innate age in terms of kinship structure, i.e. one's age being related to one's position in the lineage - in these cases age can be conceptualised as a relationship between people, which is important, for example, in determining who becomes a village elder – and when. But there were also notions of acquired age in terms of levels of formal education and wealth. Here, age can be conceptualised as the relationship between people and material goods that mark status. Furthermore, the establishment of a formal conservation project manifested a linear frame of waiting for development, which contrasted with the primarily circular frames of agropastoral livelihoods. This is an example of determining age in relation to a non-human environment conceived as lacking infrastructural development; one becomes old by waiting for things that do not materialise
Katie McQuaid (University of Leeds) Desy Ayu Pirmasari (University of Leeds)
Paper short abstract:
Drawing on feminist and decolonial research, we highlight the lived experiences of older people in Indonesian cities in navigating intersecting and increasing climate challenges and disasters. We call for better understanding of how ageing intersects with climate, gender and disability (in)justice.
Paper long abstract:
Ageing is often neglected in our understandings of climate change impacts and responses, with older people similarly neglected in urban planning, policymaking and studies. In this paper we highlight the lived experiences of older people in Indonesian cities as they face intersecting and increasing climate challenges and disasters. We draw on ethnographic and creative research conducted with older people from different communities including informal workers, indigenous people, sexual and gender diverse groups, and people with diffability. We highlight the importance of an intersectional and decolonial approach to better understand how ageing intersects with gender, climate, disaster and disability injustice(s). To do so, we foreground older voices and life words to explore the biopolitics of ageing in a time of climate change, and the multiple ways in which older people navigate urban precarities and resist existing capitalist, patriarchal and neoliberal constructions of ageing.
Helen Underhill (Newcastle University)
Paper short abstract:
Drawn from ethnographic fieldwork in Tadami, Japan, the paper explores hydraulic landscapes as sites for transmission of situated knowledges and water practices which provide insights on community resilience in face of mutually reinforcing challenges of ageing, depopulation and climate change.
Paper long abstract:
Drawn from recent ethnographic fieldwork in Tadami, Fukushima prefecture, Japan, including community workshops and participant observation, this paper explores hydraulic landscapes as a key site for the transmission of situated/folk knowledges. It argues that paying attention to these water practices and knowledges can provide new insights on community resilience in the face of the mutually reinforcing challenges of ageing population, depopulation, and responses to climate change in rural Japan.
The paper explores dynamic resilience and processes of adaptation through social and cultural engagements with water. It presents rich ethnographic examples of how people live with water in a mountainous, rural agricultural community in Japan. These examples encompass both the material and practical (eg. irrigation channels, koi ponds, roof ridge line pipes to melt snow, flood-protection in storage rooms) as well as the social and cultural (community responsibilities, local knowledge and folklore).
These material and social expressions of water are increasingly relevant to necessary reckonings with climate change. The paper explores these hydraulic landscapes in light of pressing challenges to social cohesion presented by ageing population and depopulation. Overall, these challenges produce a changing and ruptured context within which customs and traditions, livelihoods and beliefs find new combinations. The transmission of situated knowledge – culture, place, livelihood and lifeworlds – thus takes on fresh significance for community resilience and disaster risk reduction.
Jana Kopelent Rehak (Johns Hopkins University)
Paper short abstract:
Shifting Grounds examines changing socioecology through Smith Islanders’ relationship with death. It offer insight into a process of losing island in late life and bring attention to the parallels between social and environmental death. It discuss the social dimensions of health and sensory memory.
Paper long abstract:
“Shifting Grounds” examines changing socioecology through Smith Islanders’ relationship with death. Focusing first on the aging trajectories of Iris and Ken, I offer insight into a slow process of losing island in late life and bring attention to new questions about the parallels between social and environmental death. In the second, I turn to Peggy, who lives alone in her late life, and shows how the subjective and social dimensions of health are intertwined. I show how the uncertain nature of the weather and the sea mimics the same uncertainty that islanders feel toward death. As a society of mostly older adults, Smith Island faces the major health challenges of a population in decline. The pain and hardship caused by illness is not a private matter to islanders but a source of collective community concern. Lastly, I examine how connections between the environment, work, and one's identity are integrated into socio-ecological systems. I focus on the dilemma of aging in changing environment, one that Eddie Boy shares not only with other Smith Islanders, but also with people in small rural communities worldwide. As a community ages, stories about people and places often become lost as future generations dwindle in number, often moving away. I explore this phenomenon and what it symbolizes to Eddie Boy, one of the elders, this "lost language of the watermen," and relate it to how the sensory experiencing of the environment defines one's sense of self in a small kinship-based community.