Unsettling aging futures: Challenging colonial-normativity in social gerontology
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Published:
Aug 30, 2019
Keywords:
colonial normativity, crip, futurity, generativity, Indigenous, queer, successful aging
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Abstract
This article explores the stories of two women activists, both in their mid to later lives, both grandmothers, and both Indigenous to what is now Canada. Both women participated in intergenerational storytelling research in 2017, as part of a multiyear (2016–2020) oral history project. The article brings their stories into dialogue with critical writings on “successful aging” discourse and notions of “happy aging futures” while also reaching beyond gerontology to examine related work by Indigenous scholars in other fields. In doing so, it challenges the ongoing colonial-normativity of interrelated gerontological conceptualizations of generativity and futurity, building on existing efforts to queer and crip these concepts. It ultimately contributes to efforts to understand complexity among multiple aging experiences, opening possibilities of livable and positive futures among those who do not identify with dominant images of wealthy, physically fit older couples with grandchildren.
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References
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Chazan, M. (2018). Introduction: Amplifying activisms. In M. Chazan, M. Baldwin & P. Evans (eds.), Unsettling Activisms: Critical Interventions on Aging, Gender, and Social Change (pp. 1–20). Toronto, ON: Women’s Press. https://doi.org/10.1080/2201473X.2019.1605963
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Cunsolo Willox, A., Harper, S. L., Edge, V. L., My Word: Storytelling and Digital media Lab, & Rigolet Inuit Community Government. (2012). Storytelling in a digital age: Digital storytelling as an emerging narrative method for preserving and promoting indigenous oral wisdom. Qualitative Research 13: 127–147. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794112446105
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Gidigaa Migizi (Williams, D.). (edited by Simpson, L. B.). (2018). Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg: This Is Our Territory. Winnipeg, MB: ARP Books.
Grande, S. (2018). Aging, precarity, and the struggle for Indigenous elsewheres. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 31(3): 168–176. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2017.1401145
Halberstam, J. (2005). In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives. New York, NY: New York University Press.
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Hulko, W., Camille, E., Antifeau, E., Arnouse, M., Bachynski, N. & Taylor, D. (2010). Views of first nation elders on memory loss and memory care in later life. Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology 25(4): 317–342. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10823-010-9123-9
Jones, R. L. (2011). Imagining bisexual futures: Positive, non-normative later life. Journal of Bisexuality 11: 245–270. https://doi.org/10.1080/15299716.2011.571988
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Lewis, J. P. (2010). Successful aging through the eyes of Alaska natives: Exploring generational differences among Alaska natives. Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology 25(4): 385–396. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10823-010-9124-8
Lewis, J. P. & Allen, J. (2017). Alaska native elders in recovery: Linkages between indigenous cultural generativity and sobriety to promote successful aging. Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology 32: 209–222. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10823-017-9314-8
Loe, M. (2013). The digital life history project: Intergenerational collaborative research. Gerontology & Geriatrics Education 34: 26–42. https://doi.org/10.1080/02701960.2012.718013
Mackey, E. (2016). Unsettled Expectations: Uncertainty, Land, and Settler Decolonization. Black Point, NB: Fernwood Publishers.
Morrow-Howell, N., Hong, S. & Tang, F. (2009). Who benefits from volunteering? Variations in perceived benefits. The Gerontologist 49(1): 91–102. https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/gnp007
Nixon, L. (2016). Visual culture of indigenous futurisms: sâkihito-maskihkiy acâhkosiwikamikohk. GUTS Magazine, FUTURES issue (Spring 2016). Available on http://gutsmagazine.ca/visual-cultures/ (Accessed: January 9, 2019).
Peek, M. (2014). Kinship cross-talk: Love and belonging in contemporary comparative literatures. Unpublished PhD Dissertation, McMaster University. Available on https://macsphere.mcmaster.ca/bitstream/ 11375/15411/1/Peek-Dissertation.pdf (Accessed: December 17, 2018).
Pierce, J. M. (2016). Feeling, Disrupting. Biography 39(3): 434–437. https://doi.org/10.1353/bio.2016.0052
Ranzijn, R. (2010). Active ageing – Another way to oppress marginalized and disadvantaged elders?: Aboriginal elders as a case study. Journal of Health Psychology 15(5): 716–723. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359105310368181
Riach, K., Rumens, N., Tyler, M. (2014). Un/doing chromonormativity: Negotiating ageing, gender and sexuality in organizational life. Organizational Studies 35(11): 1677–1698. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840614550731
Rice, C., Chandler, E., Harrison, E., Liddiard, K. & Ferrari, M. (2015). Project Re•Vision: Disability at the edges of representation. Disability & Society 30: 513–527. https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2015.1037950
Rice, C., Chandler, E., Rinaldi, J., Changfoot, N., Liddiard, K., Mykitiuk, R. & Mu¨ndel, I. (2017). Imagining disability futurities. Hypatia 32(2): 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1111/hypa.12321
Sandberg, L. & Marshall, B. M. (2017). Queering aging futures. Societies 7(3): 1–11. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc7030021
Shepherd, L. (2016). Forgiving the future. GUTS Magazine, FUTURES issue (Spring 2016). Available on http://gutsmagazine.ca/forgiving-the-future/ (Accessed: January 9, 2019).
Simpson, L. B. (2017). As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom through Radical Resistance. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. https://doi.org/10.5749/j.ctt1pwt77c
Sium, A. & Ritskes, E. (2013). Speaking truth to power: Indigenous storytelling as an act of living resistance. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education, & Society 2: i–x.
sy, w. c. (2016). At the boiling place: Reading sap for future Anishinaabeg sugar bush (re)matriation. GUTS Magazine, FUTURES issue (Spring 2016). Available on http://gutsmagazine.ca/boiling-place/ (Accessed: December 1, 2018).
sy, w. c. (2018). Introduction to part II: Persisting. In M. Chazan, M. Baldwin & P. Evans (eds.), Unsettling Activisms: Critical Interventions on Aging, Gender, and Social Change (pp. 74–79). Toronto, ON: Women’s Press.
Tallbear, K. (2016). Making love and relations beyond settler sexualities. Public lecture. Social Justice Institute Noted Scholars Lecture Series, University of British Colombia. Available on www.youtube.com/ watch?v=zfdo2ujRUv8&t=2869s (Accessed: December 1, 2018).
Taylor, A. & Dokis, M. Dirs. (2015). OSHKIGMONG: A Place Where I Belong [DVD]. Curve Lake: Curve Lake First Nation.
Wall Kimmerer, R. (2014). Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed Press.
Warburton, J. (2014). Intergenerational programs and the promotion of generativity. Journal of Intergenerational Relationships 12(2): 213–216. https://doi.org/10.1080/15350770.2014.899453
Women’s Earth Alliance & Native Youth Sexual Health Network. n.d. Violence on the Land, Violence on Our Bodies: Building an Indigenous Response to Environmental Violence. Available on www.landbodydefense.org/ uploads/files/VLVBReportToolkit2016.pdf (Accessed: December 20, 2018).
Zepeda, S. J. (2014). Queer Xicana Indígena cultural production: Remembering through oral and visual storytelling. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education, & Society 3: 119–141.
Anderson, K. (2011). Life Stages and Native Women: Memory, Teachings, and Story Medicine. Winnipeg, MB: University of Winnipeg Press.
Arvin, M., Tuck, E. & Morill, A. (2013). Decolonizing feminism: Challenging connection between settler colonialism and heteropatriarchy. Feminist Formations 25(1): 8–34. https://doi.org/10.1353/ff.2013.0006
Belcourt, B. & Roberts, M. (2016). Making friends for the end of the world. GUTS Magazine, FUTURES issue (Spring 2016). Available on http://gutsmagazine.ca/making-friends/ (Accessed: January 9, 2019).
Boissoneau, D. (2016). Seed songs: Growing the sacred feminine, a poetic manifesto. GUTS Magazine, FUTURES issue (Spring 2016). Available on http://gutsmagazine.ca/seed-songs/ (Accessed: January 9, 2019).
Braun, K. L., Browne, C. V., Ka’opua, L. S., Kim, B. J. & Mokuau, N. (2014). Research on indigenous elders: From positivistic to decolonizing methodologies. The Gerontologist 54(1): 117–126. https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/gnt067
Carter, J., Recollet, K. & Robinson, D. (2017). Interventions into the maw of old world hunger: Frog monsters, kinstellatory maps, and radical relationalities in a project of reworlding. In H. David-Fisch (ed.), Canadian Performance Histories and Historiographies (pp. 205–231). Toronto, ON: Playwrights Canada Press.
Chazan, M. (2018). Introduction: Amplifying activisms. In M. Chazan, M. Baldwin & P. Evans (eds.), Unsettling Activisms: Critical Interventions on Aging, Gender, and Social Change (pp. 1–20). Toronto, ON: Women’s Press. https://doi.org/10.1080/2201473X.2019.1605963
Cole, J. (2018). Following Nan to the Kiji Sibi. In M. Chazan, M. Baldwin & P. Evans (eds.), Unsettling Activisms: Critical Interventions on Aging, Gender, and Social Change (pp. 229–232). Toronto, ON: Women’s Press.
Cunsolo Willox, A., Harper, S. L., Edge, V. L., My Word: Storytelling and Digital media Lab, & Rigolet Inuit Community Government. (2012). Storytelling in a digital age: Digital storytelling as an emerging narrative method for preserving and promoting indigenous oral wisdom. Qualitative Research 13: 127–147. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794112446105
Edelman, L. (2004). No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822385981
Erikson, E. H. (1963). Childhood and Society (2nd ed.). New York: Norton.
Fabbre, V. D. (2014). Gender transitions in later life: The significance of time in queer aging. Journal of Gerontological Social Work 57: 161–175. https://doi.org/10.1080/01634372.2013.855287
Gidigaa Migizi (Williams, D.). (edited by Simpson, L. B.). (2018). Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg: This Is Our Territory. Winnipeg, MB: ARP Books.
Grande, S. (2018). Aging, precarity, and the struggle for Indigenous elsewheres. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 31(3): 168–176. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2017.1401145
Halberstam, J. (2005). In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives. New York, NY: New York University Press.
Hostetler, A. J. (2009). Generativity and time in gay men’s life stories. In P. L. Hammack & B. Cohler (eds.), The Story of Sexual Identity: Narrative Perspectives on the Gay and Lesbian Life Course (pp. 397–424). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195326789.003.0017
Hulko, W., Camille, E., Antifeau, E., Arnouse, M., Bachynski, N. & Taylor, D. (2010). Views of first nation elders on memory loss and memory care in later life. Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology 25(4): 317–342. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10823-010-9123-9
Jones, R. L. (2011). Imagining bisexual futures: Positive, non-normative later life. Journal of Bisexuality 11: 245–270. https://doi.org/10.1080/15299716.2011.571988
Kafer, A. (2013). Feminist, Queer, Crip. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Lawrence, B. (2003). Approaching the fourth mountain: Native women and the ageing process. In K. Anderson & B. Lawrence (eds.), Strong Women Stories: Native Vision and Community Survival (pp. 121–134). Toronto, ON: Sumach Press.
Lewis, J. P. (2010). Successful aging through the eyes of Alaska natives: Exploring generational differences among Alaska natives. Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology 25(4): 385–396. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10823-010-9124-8
Lewis, J. P. & Allen, J. (2017). Alaska native elders in recovery: Linkages between indigenous cultural generativity and sobriety to promote successful aging. Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology 32: 209–222. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10823-017-9314-8
Loe, M. (2013). The digital life history project: Intergenerational collaborative research. Gerontology & Geriatrics Education 34: 26–42. https://doi.org/10.1080/02701960.2012.718013
Mackey, E. (2016). Unsettled Expectations: Uncertainty, Land, and Settler Decolonization. Black Point, NB: Fernwood Publishers.
Morrow-Howell, N., Hong, S. & Tang, F. (2009). Who benefits from volunteering? Variations in perceived benefits. The Gerontologist 49(1): 91–102. https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/gnp007
Nixon, L. (2016). Visual culture of indigenous futurisms: sâkihito-maskihkiy acâhkosiwikamikohk. GUTS Magazine, FUTURES issue (Spring 2016). Available on http://gutsmagazine.ca/visual-cultures/ (Accessed: January 9, 2019).
Peek, M. (2014). Kinship cross-talk: Love and belonging in contemporary comparative literatures. Unpublished PhD Dissertation, McMaster University. Available on https://macsphere.mcmaster.ca/bitstream/ 11375/15411/1/Peek-Dissertation.pdf (Accessed: December 17, 2018).
Pierce, J. M. (2016). Feeling, Disrupting. Biography 39(3): 434–437. https://doi.org/10.1353/bio.2016.0052
Ranzijn, R. (2010). Active ageing – Another way to oppress marginalized and disadvantaged elders?: Aboriginal elders as a case study. Journal of Health Psychology 15(5): 716–723. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359105310368181
Riach, K., Rumens, N., Tyler, M. (2014). Un/doing chromonormativity: Negotiating ageing, gender and sexuality in organizational life. Organizational Studies 35(11): 1677–1698. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840614550731
Rice, C., Chandler, E., Harrison, E., Liddiard, K. & Ferrari, M. (2015). Project Re•Vision: Disability at the edges of representation. Disability & Society 30: 513–527. https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2015.1037950
Rice, C., Chandler, E., Rinaldi, J., Changfoot, N., Liddiard, K., Mykitiuk, R. & Mu¨ndel, I. (2017). Imagining disability futurities. Hypatia 32(2): 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1111/hypa.12321
Sandberg, L. & Marshall, B. M. (2017). Queering aging futures. Societies 7(3): 1–11. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc7030021
Shepherd, L. (2016). Forgiving the future. GUTS Magazine, FUTURES issue (Spring 2016). Available on http://gutsmagazine.ca/forgiving-the-future/ (Accessed: January 9, 2019).
Simpson, L. B. (2017). As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom through Radical Resistance. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. https://doi.org/10.5749/j.ctt1pwt77c
Sium, A. & Ritskes, E. (2013). Speaking truth to power: Indigenous storytelling as an act of living resistance. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education, & Society 2: i–x.
sy, w. c. (2016). At the boiling place: Reading sap for future Anishinaabeg sugar bush (re)matriation. GUTS Magazine, FUTURES issue (Spring 2016). Available on http://gutsmagazine.ca/boiling-place/ (Accessed: December 1, 2018).
sy, w. c. (2018). Introduction to part II: Persisting. In M. Chazan, M. Baldwin & P. Evans (eds.), Unsettling Activisms: Critical Interventions on Aging, Gender, and Social Change (pp. 74–79). Toronto, ON: Women’s Press.
Tallbear, K. (2016). Making love and relations beyond settler sexualities. Public lecture. Social Justice Institute Noted Scholars Lecture Series, University of British Colombia. Available on www.youtube.com/ watch?v=zfdo2ujRUv8&t=2869s (Accessed: December 1, 2018).
Taylor, A. & Dokis, M. Dirs. (2015). OSHKIGMONG: A Place Where I Belong [DVD]. Curve Lake: Curve Lake First Nation.
Wall Kimmerer, R. (2014). Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed Press.
Warburton, J. (2014). Intergenerational programs and the promotion of generativity. Journal of Intergenerational Relationships 12(2): 213–216. https://doi.org/10.1080/15350770.2014.899453
Women’s Earth Alliance & Native Youth Sexual Health Network. n.d. Violence on the Land, Violence on Our Bodies: Building an Indigenous Response to Environmental Violence. Available on www.landbodydefense.org/ uploads/files/VLVBReportToolkit2016.pdf (Accessed: December 20, 2018).
Zepeda, S. J. (2014). Queer Xicana Indígena cultural production: Remembering through oral and visual storytelling. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education, & Society 3: 119–141.