Short Abstract

The emergence of Western paradigms of ageing well has shaped policies and experiences of later life in Central and Eastern Europe. This panel asks how this interplay of different models and practices of ageing can lead to new ways, both polarising and bringing possibilities, of ageing and caring.

Long Abstract

Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) has been theorised as more than a geographical and historical crossroad between East and West, where different cultural, social and political models meet. Rooted in this positionality, critiques of CEE as an object of social and political intervention have addressed different policy agendas (e.g. corruption, inter-ethnic conflict), but little attention has been paid to ageing. The recent emergence of Western paradigms of ageing well (Lamb, 2017) has led to new forms of (self-) colonisation of ageing policies and care practices within and across CEE. As intergenerational models of age care become disrupted by decades of emigration from CEE countries, policy and personal narratives of ageing well may fill this gap. Recent labour migration from Southeast Asia to the age care industry in CEE may further reshape established paradigms of ageing and caring. The clashing of diverging care models could lead not only to anti-immigration or nationalist polarisation, but also to new practices of care in later life.

We invite submissions exploring ageing at these crossroads in CEE contexts. This panel asks: How can we explore spaces of intersection (geographically, politically, culturally, economically) to understand later life policies and practices in CEE? How can we ethnographically understand the interplay between kinship care, late life experiences and institutional care in CEE and critically assess political agendas of ‘ageing well’ in terms of polarisation and possibilities? How can we relate new phenomena, such as migrant care workers in CEE, to novel and established practices of ageing and caring? And how can we use ethnographic accounts of ageing in CEE to inform broader decolonising perspectives within the anthropology of ageing and beyond?

This Panel has 1 pending paper proposal.
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