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 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.