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Paper short abstract

This paper draws on ethnographic research with older Black women in Detroit to explore how late-life reminiscence can serve as a method of both remembrance and generativity, and to reimagine the relationship between persons and collectives.

Paper long abstract

From memoir-writing groups to reminiscence therapy to life-story companies to figures of the wise elder, contemporary US social practices and cultural ideals naturalize and valorize reminiscence among older adults. Indeed, gerontological research demonstrates that reminiscence can be pleasurable and meaningful for those who engage in it, and that it can promote wellbeing for older persons. Yet from an anthropological perspective, reminiscence is not universally seen as an implicit good, nor is it always encouraged in late life. Moreover, reminiscence is never wholly individual, as interpersonal, institutional, regional, and (trans)national social relations shape the form and content of reminiscence. This paper presents findings from an ongoing multi-sited ethnographic study of reminiscence practices among diverse groups of older adults in the Detroit, Michigan metro area. Specifically, this paper draws on data from group reminiscence sessions and individual interviews over three months in Fall 2025, with a group of older Black women who are longtime Detroit residents. Sessions focused on a range of topics, including homes, education, work, food, clothing, and friendship. As women narrated their life experiences of these intimate, personal topics, they simultaneously narrated local, national, and transnational histories. Reminiscence served as a mode of creating new forms of relatedness, and generated and fulfilled desires for intergenerational legacy. This paper explores the moral, sociocultural, and political-economic aspects of late-life reminiscence, offers methodological reflections on reminiscence as ethnographic form, and works to reimagine the relationship between the life course of persons and of collectives.