Paper short abstract:

To explore what gerontology can learn from taking materiality seriously, this paper addresses questions on materiality, digitalization, and methodological innovation in studying the material dimension of ageing. We discuss the role of materiality and the challenges that arise for empirical research.

Paper long abstract:

How does the material, tangible world around us shape the lived realities, experiences, and perceptions of ageing? The material turn in the social sciences and humanities has directed attention to the material dimension as well as 'non-human actors' that co-constitute the social world. Material gerontology, a research perspective at the intersection of cultural anthropology, environmental gerontology, and the sociology of ageing, is concerned with older adults' positions, practices and perceptions in and of space, place, and materiality. The small, but increasing body of material gerontological research has so far focused on the role of objects, artefacts, and things, technologies, spaces, architectures, and bodies for the diverse experiences of ageing. To explore what gerontology can learn from taking materiality seriously, this paper addresses three questions: 1) How do spaces and things shape the everyday experiences of ageing and identities in later life?, 2) Which role do digital spaces and technologies play in co-constituting ageing?, and 3) How can we methodologically grasp the materiality of age and ageing in everyday lives? To address these questions we present spotlights from three different projects, discuss the role materiality plays in them, and which challenges arise for empirical research when trying to grasp it. In conclusion we outline basic principles of a material gerontologist research perspective.

Paper short abstract:

Are Active Retirement groups more often 'Inactive Retirement' groups? This paper questions if they totalise a specific vision of age, and whether this vision is on the wane. Looking at alternative informal groups and retiree meet-ups, can we find competing ideas of age, authority and autonomy?

Paper long abstract:

In Europe, the United States and elsewhere lengthening life spans has led to the coinage of the term 'Third Age', to denote a period of older age. Informed by national policies, older people in their third age are encouraged to remain active, healthy and productive for as long as possible. However as well as celebrating older age these policies also carry the potential to 'formalise fears' about dependency and abandonment in later life (cf. Buch 2015: 282). Indeed, Foucault refers to nursing homes as heterotopia of crisis and deviation. Deviation derives not merely from the transition from family home to these other spaces but are so termed because they represent the inactivity of old age (1986).

Why is it then that so many active retirement groups seem to operate on the basis of the passivity of their members? Based on fieldwork with retirees in Dublin as part of the larger ASSA project (Anthropology of Smart Phones and Smart Ageing) this paper focuses on Active/ Inactive Retirement groups. Located in specific spaces such as community halls and parish centres, these groups draw strong support or strong opposition from many of my respondents who view them as totalising a specific vision of age. I examine how older respondents perceive, understand and appropriate such organisations or join alternative groups, which in turn inform their own ideas of self and society. Lastly, I question how ideas of authority and autonomy are realigning in a digital age.

Paper short abstract:

Creative leisure occupations offer pathways for meaningfulness through material, spatial and social entanglements. Innovatively combining qualitative methods, this study takes an emplaced and embodied stance to examine meanings of creative leisure in everyday environments, in context of ageing.

Paper long abstract:

Midlife is a dynamic period, prone to challenging age-related transitions that impact roles, identity, and wellbeing, and often accompanied by a lack of meaningfulness. Everyday creative occupations of arts and crafts are undervalued as pathways for meaning yet offer unique opportunities to explore embodied and emplaced entanglements between person, environment, and occupation, as experienced in ageing. This paper presents a phenomenological study of lived experiences of meaningfulness during arts and crafts, asking: how do creative leisure occupations provide space for meaningfulness to emerge, in context of midlife transitions?

Combining an innovative mixture of sensory ethnography, visual methods, and interpretative phenomenological analysis, this study employs a creative and embodied stance to investigate the socio-materiality and spatiality of creative activities during midlife. Meaningful occupations such as knitting, upholstery, and sculpture are studied through prisms of sensory-rich embodied cognitions and emplaced creative practices that shape - and are shaped by - the ageing body. The triangulation of data through multiple qualitative methods enables intriguing intersections of pre-reflexive, visual, and verbal expressions of meaningfulness. This enables fresh exploration of interconnections that lie between the sensory, material, spatial, and social aspects of meaningfulness in midlife.

First empirical findings are presented through interview extracts, photo-elicitation vignettes, and sensory ethnography diaries. Shining light on both process and product, meaningfulness in the lives of people in midlife is shown to emerge through slow making of tangible, sensory-rich artefacts; skilled interactions with materials and tools; and emplacement of creative occupations in domestic and community spaces.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores whether and how migration shapes the experiences of home of those on the move and the elderly members of their families left behind in their countries of origin.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores whether and how migration shapes the experiences of home of those on the move and the elderly members of their families left behind in their countries of origin. Drawing on ethnographic research with transnational Ecuadorian and Peruvian migrants in Manchester, London and Madrid and the elder members of their families back in Ecuador and Peru, the paper argues that migration mutually shapes ideas and attitudes towards home of those who migrate and those who are left behind. An in-depth analysis of the empirical material reveals that many of those elderly left behind struggle to feel at home largely because they experience isolation and even abandonment. Their struggles for home tend to be accentuated when they perceived that the end of their lives is approaching. On the side of those who migrate, attitudes towards home are often shaped by the sense of not being able to look after the elder members of their families left behind or even visiting them. Those who could not attend their parents and grandparents' funerals tend to see their sense of home irreversibly affected. The paper ends by discussing how a material and symbolic notion of home may help to advance contemporary debates on ageing and migration.

Paper short abstract:

In this paper we present a methodological approach for understanding the socio-material dimensions of elderly care. We analyse some care cases to identify the resources, spaces and agents involved. This analysis draws on the concepts "mosaic of care resources" and "care constellations".

Paper long abstract:

In this paper we present a methodological approach for understanding the socio-material dimensions of elderly care. We analyse some care cases to identify the resources, spaces and agents involved. The concepts "mosaic of care resources" and "care constellations" enable us to approach the spatial and material entanglements of elderly care.

The "mosaic of care resources" consists of the combination of public services, private services, services provided by the family and those provided by the community. When all of these resources are combined and strategically joined together, they make "care constellations". These constellations involve various actors such as care-recipients, family members, professional caregivers, home-helps, managers, experts, political figures, businesses, community initiatives, etc. Care constellations must be analysed in a holistic manner that takes into account the whole ecosystem of participating actors and that highlights the political, economic, organisational and social justice policies relating to care work. The spaces in which care is provided are an essential issue because they are loaded with cultural meanings and they give rise to the tension between the expectations, desires and possibilities of the actors involved.

On the basis of a study carried out in Catalonia (Spain) we analyse one care constellation at home and another at a day care centre. Our hypothesis is that the lack of public funding leads to the fragmentation of care resources and turns families into a real but invisible care system for health and dependency that is forced to turn to a range of different resources and agents.