Experiences of the ageing subject : On coping with dynamics of passivation/activation in the everyday practice of elderly people.

Abstract

Contemporary Western discourses on ageing are characterised by contradictory invocations: On the one hand, elderly people are expected to age successfully when staying physically and mentally healthy and remaining productive; on the other hand, elderly people are perceived as ‘a threat’ to productivity and social flexibility and represented as victim of their ageing process. Whilst these discourses present contradictory attributions to the ageing subjects, ageing per se is characterised by a change in life which factually challenges the ‘active’ ageing paradigm: Changes in the body and the health condition, changes in the home environment (e.g. moving to a retirement home) that can lead to experiences of passivation.  Against this backdrop, this paper empirically explores the everyday practice of elderly people in different living contexts and analyses how these people are coping with dynamics of passivation/activation. The qualitative analysis shows that the elderly people we interviewed experience different potentially passivating/activating conditions (e.g. institutional procedures, financial restrictions, physical impairment and/or processes of modernisation) which they are not able to shape or participate in. Our interviewees develop three mechanisms of coping: (1) performative happiness – a form of distinguishing oneself from the ever so complaining others by being content with the circumstances, (2) solitary agency – a form of retreating from institutional frameworks and routines and focusing on the possibilities of individual agency, and (3) the development of ressentiments – a form of collectivising by devaluating others and thereby regaining power and agency as part of a group.