Linking ages - un/doing age and family in the Covid-19 pandemic

Objective: In this paper we ask how and through which social practices age and family are relationally being un/done in the course of the pandemic in Germany, and how these un/doings shape, shift or even break intergenerational relations. Background: The spread of the coronavirus and the attempts of governments to slow it down are severely affecting livelihoods worldwide. The institutionalised ageism underlying these government measures affects the youngest and oldest in society in particular (Ayalon et al. 2020; van Dyk et al. 2020). Intergenerational relations of social reproduction enacted, inter alia, through practices of eldercare, grandparenting, or voluntary work, are significantly limited in the current pandemic, as older adults are framed as an 'at-risk group', children as 'silent transmitters', and young adults as a 'risky group' (Ayalon et al. 2020; Stokes & Patterson 2020). These constructions contribute to the constitution, stabilisation and 'doing' of age in the pandemic. Method: We present findings from longitudinal research that was conducted through qualitative, problem-centred interviews between March 2020 and February 2021 with persons of different ages living in different household and care constellations in Germany. Results: Whereas in non-pandemic times doing age can be constitutive for doing family – as a constellation traditionally perceived to comprise multiple generations – we see the opposite happening in the pandemic: as age-based government measures to contain the spread of the virus limit intergenerational relations, older adults face the risk of being excluded from families. Hence, doing age can lead to a redoing or even an undoing of family. Conclusion: The paper outlines the potential of a 'linking ages' approach for the study of family lives and of intergenerational relations in times of crises

Abstieg aus der Mittelschicht?

Die Erwerbsarbeit befindet sich in einem Wandel, der Herausforderungen für die Erwerbsgesellschaft mit sich bringt: Arbeitslosigkeit, Prekarisierung und Verlust von Sicherheit, Individualisierung von Ungleichheit und die Auflösung bzw. Reorganisation bisheriger Normen (z.B. des Normalarbeitsverhältnisses) und Institutionen (z.B. der Rolle und Bedeutung von Gewerkschaften). Im Fokus der vorliegenden Arbeit stehen die postmodernen Formen der selbstständigen Arbeit „Ein-Personen-UnternehmerInnen“ und „Neue Selbstständige“, deren Erwerbsrealität beispielhaft für diese Entwicklungen ist. Die vorliegende Arbeit möchte dabei klären, ob Gemeinsamkeiten in der familialen und beruflichen Sozialisation oder den Karrieremustern bestehen, die das Ergreifen einer selbstständigen beruflichen Tätigkeit wahrscheinlicher machen. Im Zentrum steht dabei die Frage, warum sich Personen für ein Erwerbsleben in Unsicherheit entscheiden. Dazu wurde mittels Online-Survey eine Primärerhebung unter 210 Neuen Selbstständigen und Ein- Personen-UnternehmerInnen in Wien durchgeführt. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass es vor allem das Gefühl der Entfremdung und der Verlust von Kontrolle im bisherigen Berufsleben sind, die, zusammen mit einer ausgeprägten Aufstiegsorientierung, die Berufsentscheidung für eine postmoderne selbstständige Arbeitsform bedingen. Andererseits sind auch durch die wirtschaftliche Situation eingeschränkte Berufsalternativen zu berücksichtigen. Wie in anderen Studien bestätigt sich dabei das Überwiegen von hoch qualifizierten Personen und Frauen in diesen Erwerbsformen. Diese beiden Gruppen sind auch besonders gefährdet, bei einem Wechsel in die berufliche Selbstständigkeit eine Verschlechterung ihrer sozialen Position (einen sozialen Abstieg) zu erfahren.Working life is changing and inducing challenges for the working society:unemployment, precarisation and loss of security, individualisation of social inequality and dissolution resp. reorganization of present nor(e.g.the standard employment relationship) and institutions (e.g. the role and significance of trade unions). This thesis focuses on the postmodern forms of self-employed labour “one-person-entrepreneurs” and “new self-employed” whose working lives are exemplary for these developments. This thesis wants to detect if there are any commonalities in familial and occupational socialisation or career patterns that make people more likely to enter postmodern self-employed occupational activities. They key question is why people choose to enter an insecure career. For this purpose data was gathered among 210 one-person-entrepreneurs and “new self-employed” in Vienna by means of an online survey. Results show that it is particularly the feeling of alienation and loss of control regarding the former career that, together with a distinctive orientation on ascent, influences the decision to enter a postmodern self-employed occupational activity. However, limited occupational alternatives caused by the economic situation must also be considered. Furthermore the data shows, in accordance to other findings, that highly qualified persons and women are predominant among these forms of work. Both groups are also especially vulnerable to experience a degradation of their social position (social downwards mobility) when entering postmodern self-employment

Change Ahead—Emerging Life-Course Transitions as Practical Accomplishments of Growing Old(er)

With the aging of the “Baby Boomer” cohort, more and more adults are transiting from work into retirement. In public discourse, this development is framed as one of the major challenges of today's welfare societies. To develop social innovations that consider the everyday lives of older people requires a deeper theoretical understanding of the retiring process. In age studies, retiring has been approached from various theoretical perspectives, most prominently disengagement perspectives (retirement as the withdrawal from social roles and responsibilities) and rational choice perspectives (retiring as a rational decision based on incentives and penalties). Whereas, the former have been accused of promoting a deficient image of aging, the latter are criticized for concealing the socially stratified constraints older people experience. This paper proposes a practice-theoretical perspective on retiring, understanding it as a processual, practical accomplishment that involves various social practices, sites, and human, as well as non-human, actors. To exemplify this approach, I draw upon data from the project “Doing Retiring” that follows 30 older adults in Germany from 1 year before to 3 years after retirement. Results depict retiring as a complex process of change, assembled by social practices that are scattered across time, space, and carriers. Practice sequences and constellations differ significantly between older adults who retire expectedly and unexpectedly, for example through sudden job loss or illness. However, even among those who envisaged retiring “on their own terms,” the agency to retire was distributed across the network of employers, retirement schemes, colleagues, laws, families, workplaces, bodies and health, and the future retiree themselves. Results identified a distinct set of sequentially organized practices that were temporally and spatially configured. Many study participants expressed an idea about a “right time to retire” embedded in the imagination of a chrononormative life-course, and they often experienced spatio-temporal withdrawal from the workplace (e.g., reduction of working hours) which entailed affective disengagement from work as well. In conclusion, a practice-theoretical perspective supports social innovations that target more than just the retiring individual

Configuring the Older Non-User: Between Research, Policy and Practice of Digital Exclusion

Older adults face significant barriers when accessing the Internet. What can be done to address these barriers? This article analyses existing strategies to tackle the age-related digital divide on three different levels: research, policy and practice. It analyses (1) scientific conceptualisations that are used when studying Internet use and non-use in later life, (2) policies that address older adults’ Internet (non-)use in Austria and (3) characteristics of older Austrian non-users of the Internet based on the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE, wave 6). Analysis shows that Austrian policy tends to emphasise the individual responsibility to learn digital technologies, while placing a lower priority on structural issues, such as investments in infrastructure. However, SHARE data shows that only a small percentage of older non-users of the Internet is in fact reached with such interventions. Thus, this article suggests that policy needs to base its strategies on more refined understandings of Internet use and non-use in later life as well as a more nuanced image of the older non-user. A perspective of critical-cultural gerontology, as laid out in this article, highlights that technology adoption is a domestication process that takes place in the everyday lives of older adults, and it is these processes that interventions that tackle the age-related digital divide should take as a starting point

Under Construction – Zum Umbau von Praxisarchitekturen des Lehrens und Lernens in pandemischen Zeiten

Mit der Ausbreitung von SARS-CoV-2 veränderte sich die universitäre Lehre weltweit grundlegend. Dieser Beitrag diskutiert diese Veränderungen aus einer praxistheoretischen Perspektive auf Lehren und Lernen und fragt dabei, wie sich relationalen Architekturen von Lehr- und Lernpraktiken mit der Pandemie zeitlich, räumlich und sozial verändert haben. Auf Basis einer Mixed-Methods-Studie aus dem Sommersemester 2020 mit Fokus auf sozial- und geisteswissenschaftliche Studiengänge einer deutschen Hochschule zeichnen wir nach, wie zeitliche, räumliche und soziale Elemente von Lehr- und Lernpraktiken zusammenhängen, und leiten daraus Handlungsimplikationen für die universitäre Praxis ab

Un/doing Age

In intersektionalen Debatten zu Differenzierungen und sozialen Ungleichheiten wird Alter(n) als soziale Differenzkategorie oft marginalisiert behandelt. Dies führt dazu, dass der prozessuale, ‚metrische‘ und dynamische Charakter von Alter(n) und die damit verbundenen Lebenslauf- und Chrononormen in Differenzierungstheorien oft unberücksichtigt bleiben. Zudem werden in intersektionalen Debatten zwar Konstruktionsprozesse sozialer Differenzkategorien (doing), nicht jedoch deren Dekonstruktionspraktiken (undoing) analysiert. In diesem Beitrag wird deshalb zunächst das de/konstruktivistische Konzept des un/doing age (Höppner, Wanka 2021) skizziert, das es ermöglicht, strukturalistische, interaktive und diskursive Herstellungsprozesse von Alterskonstruktionen im Lebenslauf zu erfassen. Der empirische Gehalt einer solchen Perspektivierung wird in der Gegenüberstellung zweier qualitativer Forschungsprojekte zu normativ altersgradierten Übergängen im Lebenslauf – Verwitwung und Verrentung – herausgearbeitet. Dabei wird gezeigt, wie Alter in diesen Übergängen situativ jeweils relevant (doing age) und/oder irrelevant (undoing age) gemacht wird. Die empirischen Ergebnisse verdeutlichen, dass in beiden Übergängen die Chrononorm eines ,richtigen‘ Alters relevant gemacht wird, dies jedoch durch unterschiedliche Praktiken und essentialistische Alterskonstruktionen geschieht und unterschiedliche Intersektionalitäten aufruft. Besonders deutlich werden diese Konstruktionen immer dann, wenn gegen die jeweiligen Chrononormativitäten verstoßen, ein Übergang also im ‚falschen‘ Alter erlebt wird. Entsprechend wird abschließend für eine alterskomparative Linking Ages-Perspektive argumentiert – nicht nur für die Alter(n)sforschung, sondern auch für Forschungen an Übergängen im Lebenslauf

Mapping Transitions in the Life Course: An Exploration of Process Ontological Potentials and Limits of Situational Analysis

In our article we focus on potentials and challenges that arise in the use of situational analysis for reflexive-relational transition research. We discuss how transitions can be mapped as transformation processes in the life course and mapping can function as reflective tool in research projects. We explore mapping transitions not only as static situations, but also in their complex processuality. To do this, we discuss transition and reflexive maps inspired by CLARKE's situational analysis, and thereby the challenge of mapping processes. We start by discussing a mapping strategy inspired by situational analysis for the study of transitions, and proceed with an innovation of maps based on a research project. The aim is to trace the processes of change and to be able to analyze and map the connections between different dimensions and actors in these events. We reflect on various mapping strategies developed in the project to analyze spatial-material and temporal-processual aspects, their potentials, and limitations as well as the research process. Mapping processes remains challenging and important for future research. Combining situational analysis and life course research opens up possibilities for researchers to better conceptualize the processuality of situations and to test different mapping procedures for this purpose. We start by discussing a mapping strategy inspired by situational analysis for the study of transitions, and proceed with an innovation of maps based on a research project. The aim is to trace the processes of change and to be able to analyze and map the connections between different dimensions and actors in these events. We reflect on various mapping strategies developed in the project to analyze spatial-material and temporal-processual aspects, their potentials, and limitations as well as the research process. Mapping processuality remains challenging and important for future research. Combining situational analysis and life course research opens up possibilities for researchers to better conceptualize the processuality of situations and to test different mapping procedures for this purpose.In dem Artikel fokussieren wir Potenziale und Herausforderungen, die sich bei der Nutzung der Situationsanalyse für die reflexiv-relationale Übergangs- und Lebenslaufforschung ergeben. Es wird erörtert, wie Übergänge als Transformationsprozesse im Lebenslauf visualisiert werden können und wie Mapping als Reflexionsinstrument eingesetzt werden kann. Wir verstehen Übergänge als prozesshafte Gebilde, in denen Transformation verhandelt wird und untersuchen, wie diese mithilfe der Situationsanalyse nicht nur als statische Situationen, sondern auch in ihrer komplexen Prozesshaftigkeit abgebildet werden können. Wir diskutieren Übergangs- und Reflexions-Maps, die von CLARKEs Situationsanalyse angeregt sind und damit die Herausforderung, Prozesshaftigkeit darzustellen. Nach der Diskussion einer situationsanalytisch inspirierten Mapping-Strategie für die Untersuchung von Übergängen im Lebensverlauf stellen wir eine mögliche Innovation von Maps anhand eines Projekts vor. Mit diesem Ansatz wollen wir Veränderungsprozesse nachzeichnen und die Verbindungen zwischen verschiedenen Dimensionen und Akteur*innen in diesen Ereignissen analysieren und mappen. Wir reflektieren verschiedene Mapping-Strategien, die im Projektkontext entwickelt wurden, um räumlich-materielle und zeitlich-prozessuale Aspekte, ihre Potenziale und Grenzen sowie den Forschungsprozess zu untersuchen. Zusammenfassend bleibt das Mapping von Prozessualität eine Herausforderung und ein wichtiges Feld für zukünftige Forschung. Situationsanalyse und Lebenslaufforschung zusammenzudenken eröffnet Forschenden Möglichkeiten, die Prozessualität von Situationen konzeptionell besser zu fassen und hierfür verschiedene Mapping-Verfahren zu erproben. Nach der Diskussion einer situationsanalytisch inspirierten Mapping-Strategie für die Untersuchung von Übergängen im Lebensverlauf stellen wir eine mögliche Innovation von Maps anhand eines Projekts vor. Mit diesem Ansatz wollen wir Veränderungsprozesse nachzeichnen und die Verbindungen zwischen verschiedenen Dimensionen und Akteur*innen in diesen Ereignissen analysieren und mappen. Wir reflektieren verschiedene Mapping-Strategien, die im Projektkontext entwickelt wurden, um räumlich-materielle und zeitlich-prozessuale Aspekte, ihre Potenziale und Grenzen sowie den Forschungsprozess zu untersuchen. Zusammenfassend bleibt das Mapping von Prozessualität eine Herausforderung und ein wichtiges Feld für zukünftige Forschung. Situationsanalyse und Lebenslaufforschung zusammenzudenken eröffnet Forschenden Möglichkeiten, die Prozessualität von Situationen konzeptionell besser zu fassen und hierfür verschiedene Mapping-Verfahren zu erproben

The Social Production of Age, Space and Exclusion: Towards a More Theory‑Driven Understanding of Spatial Exclusion Mechanisms in Later Life

Gerontology has for a long time been described as “data rich, but theory poor”. Thisis true for the study of spatial exclusion, too: in a recent scoping review on old‑age exclusion, Walshand his colleagues called for more theoretical work in the field of spatial exclusion. To answer this call,our article sketches out a heuristic model of an “ageing, space and exclusion” triangle, mainly based uponLefebvrian thoughts. We applied our model to interpret the political concept of “Age Friendly Citiesand Communities” (AFCC), promoted by the World Health Organization, and its practices worldwide.Some concluding remarks suggest further steps in improving this theoretical perspective

Invisible caregivers: The ‘hidden lives’ of German university students with care responsibilities

Since university students increasingly face the need to reconcile studying and caring for an older person this study explores the lives, challenges and coping strategies of caregiving students in Germany as well as the ways institutions of higher education can (or already do) support them. The situation of such students was investigated with eight in-depth interviews with caregiving students, which were fully transcribed and analysed with a thematic coding strategy. Results show that caregiving students in tertiary education are a group that experiences unique challenges that differ from those faced by caregivers in later life, working life or caregiving children. They tend to live ‘hidden lives’ as caregivers and face exclusion from a ‘normal’ student life. Findings indicate the importance of raising awareness for the topic among university staff as well as flexibility with regards to regulations in the university context

Exclusion from Social Relations in Later Life and the Role of Gender : A Heuristic Model

Articles Being socially connected is a universal human need, but a substantial number of older men and women are or become excluded from these connections in later life. Exclusion from social relations (ESR) is unwanted as it undermines people's ability to lead a healthy, active, and independent life. Policies to reduce this form of exclusion have been limited in effectiveness, due in part to a broader lack of knowledge about the dynamics of social exclusion in older ages and the intersection of social exclusion with gender constructions. To advance our understanding of ESR in later life, we develop a heuristic model based on theories and previous empirical studies. Considering the gendered constructing forces of ESR in older age that can potentially lead to loneliness and reduced health and wellbeing, the model identifies individual drivers, such as biopsychosocial conditions, personal standards and life- -course transitions, and macro-level drivers, such as norms and welfare state provisions. This model can serve as a conceptual platform for further theoretical development and empirical study on the gendered construction of ESR in later life. While our focus is on drivers of ESR and its outcomes, potential reversed effects are also discussed