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- Convenors:
-
Cordula Endter
(Catholic University of Applied Social Sciences Berlin)
Irene Götz (LMU Munich)
Valerie Keller (University of Zurich)
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- Formats:
- Panel Roundtable
- Stream:
- Intersectionality
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 23 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Helsinki
Short Abstract:
Old age is a strongly regulated life phase in which individual practices, bodies, and cultural images are influenced by social orders and policies of age. The panel contrasts these normativities with subjective age practices, in which assumptions about age (bodies, minds, materialities) are queered.
Long Abstract:
The transition to "old age" has always been socially, culturally, politically, and economically standardized; how one grows old, still depends strongly on the cultural concepts, social practices, political regulations, and economic conditions of a certain milieu and time. Whereas until the mid-20th century elderly people were all in all expected to withdraw from social life (and did so due to being exhausted after a comparatively unhealthy working life), today they are confronted with the overall idea of "active aging", that is, still bringing their potential into society, be it as informal carers, volunteers, or employees who must supplement their pensions. How do elderly women and men deal with these expectations? How do they resist the social expectations of old age? How do they undermine political regulations and cultural images of age? What resources are available to them and in how far does gender and sociocultural background matter?
The panel examines the (subversive) practices of older people with which they queer the images, norms, and policies of old age that are directed at them. Invited are presentations that critically examine age, body, materiality, and discourses and ask about the other spaces, practices, narratives, and images of aging that disrupt the hegemony of old age as the Other and Abject and instead emphasize the agency of older people.
As we want to foster the discussion about the transformation of old age in aging societies and address a wider public, we apply for a panel with a round table discussion.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 23 June, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
Based on narrative interviews with older adults across Europe, this paper reflects on the ways in which cultural expectations and contestations of “age” present novel frames through which we can view subjectivity and solidarity.
Paper long abstract:
This paper explores the breaking of legal, economic and social norms associated with aging. Based on ethnographic research with 100 individuals across Europe in the course of the SHAPES Horizon 2020 Action research project, we analyse how those labled ‘older adults’ see themselves, are being seen by others in different contexts, and how they disrupt consciously and unconsciously the institutionally-fabricated ways they are told they age. Looking at key-experiences such as retirement, education, health, life-satisfaction and the meaning of waiting, this paper examines how, countering the ‘burden discourse’, thick descriptions of their subjective narratives shed light on and subvert old-age stereotypes.
Presenting exemplary vignettes from our conversations, we provide empirical background on how our participants’ ways of life and interpretations of living as well as the current rupture of familiar sociality during the COVID-19 pandemic, put into question expectations and boundaries associated with “the old”. In so doing, we argue that while anthropology is comfortable in deconstructing categories like gender, race or ethnicity, “age” is still too-often framed as natural and theoretically inert, yet is clearly a space of cultural expectations and contestations. Following the ways in which some of our research participants subvert stereotypes of aging - symbolically “wearing purple”, as Jenny Joseph has suggested in her poem in the 1960s - we conclude by reflecting on how “age” its satisfactions and its dissatisfactions, present novel frames through which we can view subjectivity and solidarity.
Paper short abstract:
The presentation deals with the question whether and how the factors that characterize outstanding pre-modern female performers, manifest themselves in the self-image of contemporary elderly singing women in Estonia.
Paper long abstract:
Based on the data from 19th-20th century we can claim that elderly women have formed a significant part of the most outstanding creators in Estonian traditional (pre-modern) singing culture. Several factors seem to intertwine in the performativity of these singers: change in women's status and behavioural models in postmenopausal age; an exceptional self-expression accepted – sometimes even expected – in the case of outstanding creators; performers’ skills acquired during lifetime; high vitality; independence from the self-control and -constraints characteristic of modernity.
The presentation deals with the question whether and how these factors manifest themselves in the self-image of contemporary elderly singing women in Estonia. The research was conducted by interviewing women who represent the sustainable premodern oral singing culture, the modern choir culture, and the female customers of the nursing home, participating in singing. Gerontological, gender studies, performativity and biographical perspectives were used in the interpretation.
Paper short abstract:
Folk dances and stage folk dances in Latvia are danced by every generation but attitudes towards age differ in both dance genres. The aim of the presentation is to analyse how dancers look at age, as well as to highlight the importance of dancing at age.
Paper long abstract:
Folk dances in Latvia are danced by every generation. With folk dances I refer to folklore genre and also stage folk dance, which is a genre established in Soviet times. Attitudes towards age differ in folk dances and stage folk dances. In folk dances, older people seem to be considered equal, often being the ones that entertain the younger generation. Older dancers are also highly valued in folklore expeditions, they are considered to be the ones that demonstrate dances most accurately. The cult of youth was propagated during the Soviet era, so the older generation were not given the opportunity to show themselves. Currently, the older generation is actively dancing. Stage folk dancers are divided into several groups – children, young people, the middle generation and seniors. It is not specified at what age the transition to the next group takes place. If the transition from children to youth groups takes place without any frustration, then the transition from young people to the middle generation and further to the senior group is often emotionally unpleasant. In spite of this the dancers appreciate the fact that they can dance, maintain physical shape, socialize, and nurture cultural heritage. They are not excluded but feel like a valuable part of dancers’ society.
The aim of the presentation is to analyse how folk dancers look at age, as well as to highlight the importance of dancing at age.
Paper short abstract:
This paper focuses on 50+ transgender women’s performances of gender, sexuality, intimacy and (older) age in digital spheres. Centralizing embodiment of these performances in counter-hegemonic discourses could help us challenge ageist and cissexist normativities of sexiness and (online) intimacy.
Paper long abstract:
In dominant discourse, ageing is conceptualized in heteronormative ways. Longevity, generativity and heteronormative sexual attractiveness are centralized and, for women in particular, dominant notions of beauty are connected to maintaining a youthful appearance. At some point, signifiers of an ageing body can no longer be masked and as a result, sexy feminine women’s clothing and wearing certain types of make-up are part of appearances that are suddenly deemed “too sexy” for women with ageing bodies. For 50+ transgender women, this means that it may become particularly difficult to make their gender performances intelligible, because presenting more androgynously may be unhelpful for them in “passing” as women, but more feminine or sexy clothes are deemed inappropriate for their age.
This shows how the embodied intersections of gender, sexuality and (older) age work together in structuring 50+ transgender women’s position in society. In preliminary work that centralizes 50+ transgender women, attention is mostly paid to transitioning processes, while sexuality and intimacy are sidelined. Additionally, self-representation is rarely taken into account. For 50+ transgender women, social networks and dating sites may be spheres in which they have more agency over their own representation. A new materialist approach allows me to gain insight in how expressions of sexuality and intimacy are embodied in counter-hegemonic performances of gender, sexuality and (older) age in digital spheres in Belgium. Ultimately, looking into these self-representations could be helpful in gaining insight in how dominant notions of sexuality, sexiness and attractiveness, and (online) intimacy could be challenged and redefined.