Introduction
The construction of ageing as a period of life marked by the bleakness of disability, dependency, decline and social disengagement (Katz Reference Katz2001) has increasingly been countered within various types of policy documents and popular media that have embedded and shaped a diversity of positive ageing discourses that reconfigure ageing. This reconfiguration is characterised by an extension of mid-life, and the compression and relocation of ‘old age’ and its negative associations into deep later life (Gilleard and Higgs Reference Gilleard and Higgs2000). The roots of positive ageing discourses are often traced to the seminal work of Rowe and Kahn (Reference Rowe and Kahn1997), whose definition of ‘successful ageing’ consists of three core components: (a) the avoidance of disease, decline and disease-related disability; (b) the maintenance of high levels of physical and cognitive functioning; and (c) sustained, active engagement in community and social life. Since its emergence, positive ageing has been taken up by both scholars and policy makers in ways that have expanded its purview, incorporating notions of good health, functionality, independence, productivity, social connectedness and the capacity to engage in the activities of daily life as central discursive features (Asquith Reference Asquith2009; Tulle-Winton Reference Tulle-Winton1999). Significantly, the expansion of positive ageing discourses occurred alongside its co-optation within particular political projects and has supported its alignment with the central features of neoliberalism. Following Asquith (Reference Asquith2009), the term positive ageing is used within this article to capture the diverse set of increasingly prominent discourses including positive, active, productive and successful ageing.
The emergence of positive ageing discourses challenged dominant conceptualisations in which ageing was intertwined with and inseparable from decline, dysfunction and social disengagement, and reconfigured these outcomes from inevitable parts of the ageing experience into mutable outcomes determined primarily by individual action and lifestyle. By disrupting the idea that ageing necessarily results in a time of disease and decline, positive ageing discourses construct ageing as an opportunity for the continued enjoyment of life via diverse forms of activity, engagement and function. On the surface, positive ageing discourses appear to unproblematically challenge negative stereotypes associated with ageing in contemporary Western society and create space for new agentic possibilities for older adults. However, critical gerontologists (Cardona Reference Cardona2008; Katz Reference Katz2001; Laliberte Rudman Reference Laliberte Rudman2006; Mendes Reference Mendes2013) have been wary of such claims, producing nuanced critiques that draw attention to the exclusionary potential of the discourses, the possibility that such discourses have to reaffirm or reproduce ageism, and their co-option into neoliberal forms of governing.
Underpinning positive ageing discourses and the pursuit of never-ending youth is a repudiation of ‘oldness’ and a rejection of bodily decline, abject outcomes that are firmly positioned as undesirable and to be avoided as long as possible (Gilleard and Higgs Reference Gilleard and Higgs2000). The disassociation of ageing, disease and decline has resulted in a significant reframing of the physical and functional problems associated with the process of ageing. These once ‘natural’ aspects of the ageing process have been recast as products of individual lifestyle choices and avoidable outcomes (Jones and Higgs Reference Jones and Higgs2010; Laliberte Rudman Reference Laliberte Rudman2006). Positive ageing discourses increasingly construct health as a necessary condition for the cultivation of both personal wellbeing and an agentic, self-fulfilling later life, rendering physical and mental decline as markers of undesirable ‘oldness’, dependency and passivity (Higgs et al. Reference Higgs, Leontowitsch, Stevenson and Jones2009). The pervasive construction of health as a necessary condition for ageing well has, according to Gilleard and Higgs (Reference Gilleard and Higgs2017), given rise to a new, significant social divide in later life distinguishing older adults who are fit from those who are frail. As a result, older adults experiencing frailty are further pushed into marginalised social and cultural positions. To this end, Katz and Peters (Reference Katz and Peters2008: 348) suggest that ultimately positive ageing discourses have functioned to produce new standards of successful living and have effectively ‘reintroduced ageism into our dominant cultural narrative under the sign of positive ageism’.
Positive ageing and neoliberal political rationality
Critical gerontologists have also raised concerns regarding the specific ways positive ageing has been shaped in relation to neoliberalism within contemporary anxieties about the economic and social effects of the global ageing population (Boudiny Reference Boudiny2013). Neoliberal approaches to governing are characterised by an erosion of public social safety nets and an increased emphasis on individual responsibility, economic rationality, activation and austerity (Asquith Reference Asquith2009; Rose Reference Rose1999). The neoliberal emphasis on the twin principles of choice and freedom gives rise to the formation of rational, active citizens charged with the responsibility of ensuring their own futures, including the futures of their bodies, through the management of risks and the exercise of choice (Rose Reference Rose1999). The social and political conditions associated with neoliberalism have shaped ideas about health, producing a ‘will to health’ (Rose Reference Rose2001), circulating a new imperative for individuals to secure, maintain and optimise their health.
The emergence of the ‘will to health’ and the related transformation of health into a fundamental and required goal of the individual has buttressed positive ageing discourses, rendering ageing another area of life in which autonomous subjects are expected to act and proactively manage personal risks to avoid state dependency (Higgs et al. Reference Higgs, Leontowitsch, Stevenson and Jones2009; Laliberte Rudman Reference Laliberte Rudman2015). Positive ageing discourses and neoliberalism are co-constitutive, and positive ageing has informed and shaped various approaches to governing ageing populations that facilitate cuts to the welfare state and prioritise the ‘activation’ of dependent citizens (Asquith Reference Asquith2009; Boudiny Reference Boudiny2013; Cardona Reference Cardona2008; Dillaway and Byrnes Reference Dillaway and Byrnes2009). The transfer of responsibility for the risks associated with ageing and the avoidance of dependency from the state on to individuals produces a moral framework for evaluating the lives of individuals through which decline, disability, physical decay and limited function serve as evidence of personal failure (Katz and Marshall Reference Katz and Marshall2003). As such, the state of the individual ageing body becomes an important signifier of moral worth and responsible citizenship.
Consistent with neoliberalism, discourses of positive ageing place emphasis on individual responsibility and lifestyle choices, focusing particularly on exercise and diet regimes, largely overlooking the physical, social and economic environments in which ageing adults are situated and their role in shaping health outcomes and ability to participate in such lifestyle practices (Cardona Reference Cardona2008). Although positive ageing discourses offer promises of continued agency exercised through independent choice and control over the body, such promises are little more than an unattainable ideal for the many citizens who do not possess the necessary resources to implement the ‘right’ choices (Asquith Reference Asquith2009; Dillaway and Byrnes Reference Dillaway and Byrnes2009; Mendes Reference Mendes2013). Taken for granted are the socio-economic, physical and social resources and capacities required to participate in the actions promoted as a means to age well. Access to such resources are not guaranteed, but instead are shaped by the social positions and conditions occupied across the lifecourse, including factors such as gender, race, education and citizenship status (Boudiny Reference Boudiny2013; Laliberte Rudman, Huot and Dennhardt Reference Laliberte Rudman, Huot and Dennhardt2009). The pervasiveness of individual responsibility and the corresponding fear of dependency as ideological constructs operate to support ageism and exclusion through the construction of dependent older adults as irresponsible, failed citizens.
Neoliberalism and positive ageing discourses permeate everyday life in many contexts, shaping structured mandates for how to think about ageing and act towards the ageing body: a ‘duty to age well’ (Laliberte Rudman Reference Laliberte Rudman2015). While prescriptive, the power of these discourses is not deterministic. A body of scholarship is emerging that considers how individual ageing citizens take up and negotiate positive ageing discourses in their everyday lives, and the effects that such discourses have in shaping older adults’ fields of possible action. Positive ageing discourses have been found to shape and bound older adults’ beliefs and practices related to the ageing body in ways that privilege ideals of individual responsibility, agency, activity, independence, productivity and social engagement (Bryant, Corbett and Kutner Reference Bryant, Corbett and Kutner2001; Guell et al. Reference Guell, Shefer, Griffin and Ogilvie2001; Kemp and Denton Reference Kemp and Denton2003; Stenner, McFarquhar and Bowling Reference Stenner, McFarquhar and Bowling2010). Such studies have identified widespread levels of support for the maintenance of an agentic identity into later life (Bryant, Corbett and Kutner Reference Bryant, Corbett and Kutner2001) and have flagged the importance older adults place on behaving in ‘responsible’ ways to maintain their wellbeing and health (Kemp and Denton Reference Kemp and Denton2003). Dependency, identified as an adverse, undesirable outcome, operates as a spectre that incites older adults to take a number of promoted actions to maintain and optimise their bodies (Guell et al. Reference Guell, Shefer, Griffin and Ogilvie2001).
While independence, activity and productivity have come to be seen as markers of positive ageing, the ways in which older adults interpret and express their commitment to these ideals are not uniform: they are shaped by other aspects of older adults’ identities. In particular, discourses on positive ageing intersect with discourses on gender, race, sexuality and other categories of difference. In this vein, critical gerontologists have shown how the discourses of positive ageing are intertwined with hegemonic ideals of masculinity and femininity (Calasanti Reference Calasanti2005; Calasanti and King Reference Calasanti and King2005; Smith et al. Reference Smith, Braunack-Mayer, Wittert and Warin2007), and produce expectations of health, fitness and appearance for older adults that are distinctly gendered.
Aims
This paper is concerned with exploring the ways in which discourses on neoliberalism, positive ageing and gender interact and converge to shape the subjective possibilities for older adults. To explore this intersection, we draw on in-depth narratives of older adults to describe richly how their everyday lived experiences are contoured by specific responsibilities to maintain their health, bodily independence and mental capacities. We illustrate how older adults describe various regulatory practices of bodily fitness, health and diet as moral responsibilities and obligations of good citizenship: obligations that they acknowledge cannot always be fulfilled. In so doing, our aim is to highlight the diverse ways that older adults take up these discourses by attending to moments of discursive alignment and tension; drawing attention to the ways in which the socio-culturally structured mandates are both enabling and constraining. In drawing attention to moments of discursive tension, our findings provide important insights into how older adults negotiate positive ageing discourses in the sometimes unpredictable context of their daily lives and the limitations of the discourses as an interpretive framework given their exclusion of the bodily decline.
Methods and methodology
In this article, we present findings generated through a critical analysis of qualitative interview data collected as part of a larger ethnographic study that explored how neighbourhood and person transact to shape a sense of inclusion in older adults. Although participants were asked during their interviews to talk about how, as older adults, they interacted with their neighbourhoods as physical and social spaces, we found that most narratives included talk about how participants constructed their identities as subjects who were ageing well. These accounts were often coupled with references to others who had failed to age responsibly and were now experiencing a variety of adverse outcomes. This type of talk was concentrated in the narratives of female participants and was less prominent in the narratives of the three males. This preliminary finding led to a focused analysis of narrative data that addressed participants’ constructions of themselves and others as healthy or unhealthy older adults, and how their accounts were situated in relation to discourses on positive ageing, gender and neoliberalism.
Theoretical underpinnings
Our analytic approach is informed by governmentality (Foucault Reference Foucault, Dreyfus and Rabinow1983; Rose Reference Rose1999). Power, from a governmentality perspective, is understood to be both productive and relational and is exercised through an expansive set of practices, techniques and technologies, both overt and subtle, that are implicated in fostering individuals’ conduct. As an effect of power, discourse operates to shape collective perceptions and individual actions through the promotion of particular forms of subjectivities and ways of understanding the world (Lupton Reference Lupton1992). From this perspective, discourses of positive ageing can be understood as technologies of government that enact power by rendering particular forms of being and acting as desirable, and directing older adults towards these subjective possibilities, while obscuring or delegitimising other possible ways of being and acting. Subjects, in this way, are implicated in relations of power, in effect governing themselves and others. Governance in this formulation is exercised through the freedom of individuals to act upon themselves and others (Rose Reference Rose1999). As such, negotiation of discourses and resistance is possible but is often associated with risks, such as that of being viewed as a ‘failed’ citizen or being seen as undeserving of various forms of social support.
Political rationalities, or the ways of thinking about the practice and nature of government, are central influences that guide and shape the forms of subjectivity that are promoted as desirable within specific social and historical contexts (Foucault Reference Foucault, Burchell, Gordon and Miller1991). As neoliberal political rationalities have proliferated, technologies of government, inclusive of discourses, increasingly aim to direct citizens towards forms of conduct that invoke and involve individual forms of responsibility, self-management, risk-management, bodily optimisation and monitoring (Lupton Reference Lupton1995; Petersen and Lupton Reference Petersen and Lupton1996; Rose Reference Rose, Barry, Osborne and Rose1996). This is highly visible in positive ageing discourses which incite ageing subjects to take up risk-reducing, proactive lifestyle practices as part of responsible citizenship in the interest of protecting and ensuring their own wellbeing, as well as the socio-economic future of the nation (Boudiny Reference Boudiny2013; Mendes Reference Mendes2013; Laliberte Rudman Reference Laliberte Rudman2006). This process is active and requires relentless self-management of the body (Stevenson and Higgs Reference Stevenson and Higgs2011). A governmentality perspective enables an analysis that attends to the ways in which responsibilities for health and wellbeing in various domains of life are shifted on to ageing individuals, producing new moral duties ‘to act and make the right choices’ (Higgs et al. Reference Higgs, Leontowitsch, Stevenson and Jones2009: 689).
Participants and data collection
We recruited 14 residents (three male, 11 female) aged 65 years or more living in two neighbourhoods in a mid-sized Canadian city (population of approximately 400,000). Individuals were eligible to participate if they lived in one of the target neighbourhoods for at least one year, could participate in an interview in English, were not currently engaged in paid employment, and were able to access the community on their own or with assistance. All participants included in the sample were Caucasian, living in their own dwellings alone or with a spouse, and reported experiencing good, very good or excellent health. All participants had completed high school or post-secondary education, and typically had money left over at the end of each month. Overall, the sample was fairly resource-rich with respect to education, finances, health and social connectedness. The neighbourhoods in which the participants lived were also resource-rich, with local access to senior-specific activity programmes, and a variety of stores and services within walking distance.
Each participant met with a researcher three times and participated in three types of qualitative and spatial data collection: (a) a narrative interview, (b) Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking, completing an activity/travel diary and follow-up interview, and (c) a go-along interview. The current analysis focuses specifically on the open-ended narrative interviews in which participants were asked to tell their stories of living in their neighbourhoods as older adults. The duration of the narrative interviews ranged from 45 to 90 minutes. Each interview was audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. The majority of data collection sessions were completed by the first author (RP).
Data analysis
We applied narrative analysis methods, enabling an examination of the interplay between discourses and the lived experiences of subjects because they convey the influence of socio-cultural factors and underscore the agency of individuals (Chase Reference Chase, Denzin and Lincoln2011; Zinn Reference Zinn2005). We conceptualised narratives as socially situated, active constructions that are shaped by a variety of interpretive resources, including discourses, which individuals draw on to construct and convey their identities and experiences (Bamberg Reference Bamberg, Meister, Kindt and Schernus2005; Chase Reference Chase, Denzin and Lincoln2011). The analysis was conducted using an open-ended inductive process. First, interview segments in which informants talked about their own ageing and the ways that they managed their ageing bodies were flagged. Segments where participants described or drew attention to the ageing of others, or compared their own ageing to that of others, were also marked. These interview segments were then coded in an open-ended manner. Once these codes were generated, the interview segments were re-examined from a governmentality perspective to focus specifically on how individuals made sense of their conduct in relation to positive ageing discourses. Codes were refined in an iterative and ongoing theme-generation process through reflexive note-taking and discussions among co-authors.
Findings
Overall, the findings illustrate how participants drew on the bodies, capacities and lifestyle choices of themselves and others as evidence to demonstrate their compliance or non-compliance with the ‘duty to age well’. To capture the diverse ways that participants in this study took up and negotiated positive ageing discourses in their everyday lives, we have organised our findings into four thematic categories: bodywork practices, managed consumption, othering strategies and tensions in the discourse. In alignment with positive ageing discourses, the first two themes capture the importance that participants placed on the dietary and bodywork practices they engaged in, and how such practices were levied as evidence of their responsible citizenship, morality and effect self-management. Further, our findings suggest that older adults engage in intensive bodywork regimes not only to enact their identities as citizens ageing well but also to demonstrate their commitment to engaging in ‘productive’ forms of work. The participants in this study also described their extensive commitment to ‘healthy eating’ and the types of disciplinary practices they engaged in to restrict their consumption of ‘risky’ products and foods. In addition to their adoption of various dietary practices and bodywork regimes, the older adults in this study articulated their identities as responsible ageing citizens by invoking comparisons to peers who were experiencing decline and disease-related disability. Through this ‘othering’ strategy, old adults experiencing decline are positioned as irresponsible subjects whose failure to manage their bodies proactively contributed to their dependency and undesirable social positions. While participants’ narratives often aligned with positive ageing discourses, the findings of this study also highlight tensions in the discourses and moments where their usefulness as an interpretive framework was interrupted, particularly when confronted with the unexpected or unexplained decline of their own bodies or the bodies of others.
Bodywork, productivity and duty
Within positive ageing discourses, activity is positioned as being a crucial component of individual happiness, health, and ageing well (Guell et al. Reference Guell, Shefer, Griffin and Ogilvie2001; Stenner, McFarquhar and Bowling Reference Stenner, McFarquhar and Bowling2010). Maintaining a ‘busy body’ (Katz Reference Katz2000) was constructed by participants as an important pursuit and a central component of ageing well. In contrast, respondents expressed antipathy towards those who engaged in sedentary pursuits, which were constructed as non-productive and indicators of ‘oldness’. In alignment with previous studies, a traditional leisure-based retirement lifestyle was rejected in favour of a new productivity-focused retirement that was achieved through learning-based or physical activities that engage or extend the capacities of the body and mind (Katz and Laliberte Rudman Reference Katz and Laliberte Rudman2005). In particular, participants highlighted the importance of curating a particular lifestyle, one that was both active and productive, as a way to reconcile their sense of themselves as good citizens after their departure from paid work. Joan, a newly retired family physician, structured her narrative around her retirement at age 82:
Trying to find my way was difficult … I've never been creative at all, I do not like gardening, I have no hobbies … There's no book telling you if you're suddenly – I don't say retired, I often say I'm unemployed, which is quite different. I was self-employed. I worked extremely hard and loved it … It was hard. I don't know what I did; I think I was extremely unhappy. I didn't read a lot; I don't know what I did. I think I probably watched a lot of television, very unhealthy because I'm normally very active. (Joan, 84 F)
Joan described this unhappy period of her life as one marked by passivity, ‘unhealthy’ television consumption and a lack of direction or purpose that starkly contrasts her meaningful and fulfilling life as a physician. She dismissed a leisure-based retirement, insisting it did not match her active lifestyle, and instead joined a local senior's centre where she started taking line dancing classes. Joan approached line dancing with intensity, dedicating 16 hours a week to the activity and described it as her ‘halftime job’:
It's [line dancing] almost addictive because you feel so good. It's also – imagine how good it is for your memory? Because I started off knowing nothing and so you do level one a couple of times, and then you go on to level two. So, now I'm doing level two and some of level three. You have to remember, and it's really – I can't believe how important this is, it's a memory game almost. (Joan, 84 F)
In addition to her 16 hours of line dancing, she also began to ‘walk in the park every day, probably for one to two hours’. Expanding her understanding of productive work to include the rigorous management and discipline of her body in which she engages enabled Joan to reconcile her sense of herself as a good ageing citizen after her departure from formal work.
The bodywork promoted through positive ageing discourses is constructed as productive work via the anticipated social and personal benefits derived from the determent of old age and dependency. Positioning bodywork in this way aligns with neoliberalism and the responsibility it bestows on individual citizens for the securement and maintenance of health. A number of participants described their rigorous commitment to physical activity and its place of priority in their everyday lives, and it appears that this productive bodywork is an aspect of the ‘duty to age well’. The continuous, unwavering commitment such a duty requires is visible in Dorothy's narrative. She described her desire to engage in formal volunteer work, but that her various daily scheduled fitness activities and classes made it impossible for her to do as her busy schedule left her very little time for other meaningful activities:
For me yes it probably does right now because [exercise] kind of takes a priority for me. I feel that I want to be doing the physical stuff while I can, and I think it'll help me stay more active longer … I keep thinking about volunteering even now, and then I think … Monday I go to yoga downtown. Tuesday mornings I work out in the gym. Monday afternoon I swim. Wednesday afternoon I swim … I'm really not that – it's ridiculous. It's all self-imposed, but I'm just not as available as I would like to be able to say I can work every Tuesday morning for two hours. (Dorothy, 65 F)
Dorothy emphasised that she had to prioritise her health and the maintenance of her body because her early osteoporosis diagnosis put her at increased risk for physical decline and thus she had to be particularly responsible and maintain her physical capacities.
The ability to transform one's bodywork into productive work, however, is predicated on both the bodily capacities and the resources available to the individual. Lily, a recently retired nurse, drew upon her expert knowledge to create an optimal recovery plan following her knee replacement surgery. As a new retiree, she approached her continued functionality as her primary responsibility and sought out various fitness and allied health services, incorporating physical therapy, walking, yoga and weight-bearing exercise into her weekly routine:
After my surgery, I used to walk, walk, walk, you know, just to get my exercise and – but then that next winter was really bad, that really bad winter and you couldn't walk. So that's when I started doing exercise classes … they had a seniors group, and there was an exercise on Monday … So I did that, and then I was going to [another local] senior centre … then they opened up exercise classes here at the mall Tuesday and Thursday, nine for an hour, nine and one. So I've been coming every Tuesday and Thursday morning for an hour …Tuesday evening I go – my daughter teaches yoga, so I go to yoga … I figure that's enough for exercise for the week. And then on the weekend, I might walk. (Lily, 74 F)
Lily approached the management of her recovery as an entrepreneurial, rational consumer seeking out available resources and expertise in her neighbourhood. Her weekly physical activity schedule highlights the intensity and the ongoing nature of bodywork required to enact a positive ageing identity.
The bodywork promoted through positive ageing discourses as a means to self-fulfillment and the deferment of old age requires continuous commitment from the ageing citizens. These unrelenting practices require ageing subjects to engage in self-surveillance and constant monitoring of the body for signs of change, and to modify their bodily management practices accordingly:
I still really work to do the things that I know I need to do. I'm not a techie but I like books, and I read a lot. And I love researching things, but I like researching in books … I really work at keeping – doing things that I know I have to do for my own health. Walking is a big part of that, and that's a struggle because I can't walk now without my $500 orthotics in my shoes. I can walk, I can't walk the miles that I used to walk, but I can still go over and walk through that park and go up and down that ravine and do enough to keep myself moving. (Pippa, 76 F)
Pippa positioned the self-work of continued learning and physical activity as the ‘things I know I have to do for my own health’, and part of her responsibility or duty as an ageing citizen. Pippa's able, fit body and mind, as well as her ability to purchase Can $500 orthotics, enabled her to transform her bodywork into meaningful and productive work aimed at maintaining her body and deferring decline.
Managed consumption, organic food and bodily regulation
Participants’ narratives, in line with the ‘duty to age well’, explicitly positioned them as active, responsible subjects who consciously directed their conduct to avoid risk, delay bodily changes and maintain their capacities. Diet was one central area of daily life where participants’ regulation of their bodies and lifestyle was highly visible. Food choices, restrictions and self-imposed regulations were a common topic in the interviews and informed a number of the daily activities of participants from where they purchased their food, what food they ate and how they prepared their food. The importance of such self-management was emphasised by Sonia, who equated ill-health with decline and disaster in all areas of life:
At my age, [health is] primary. You know, that's all you think about in a way now because if you're not healthy, the rest of your life just falls apart. And I don't intend to have that happen to me if I can help it. I mean, I'm not a nut about it, but you know, if I can go to places where the food is healthy, I will, you know? … I try to watch my sugar intake – and as I sit there eating cookies, but I don't normally eat that many … I try to restrict a lot of that to just, you know, once a day I'll have a couple of cookies with a cup of tea in the afternoon … I'm much more conscious of my health than I used to be. (Sonia, 76 F)
The ageing process and looming prospect of decline are vital factors motivating Sonia's management of her diet and restriction of sugar and unhealthy foods, ‘gateways drugs’ that lead to one's life falling apart. The tight restrictions Sonia places around the food she consumes offers up a promise of control over her health and the process of ageing. Her consumption of cookies during the interview, a potentially ‘unhealthy’ food and a sign of non-compliance, she explained, was justified by her restriction of sugar throughout the rest of the day and the control she exercises over her portion size. Her control over her body, appetite and desires reflects her responsibility and morality as a healthy ageing subject.
Another participant described her commitment to healthy food and strict avoidance of ‘junk’:
When I eat, I don't eat junk. Occasionally there's the chocolate covered almond but … I do all my own food preparation. I don't buy ready-made stuff. I'd have a garden if I could … I grew up on a farm, so you eat directly from the land … no chemicals … In the summer months, there is a fruit stand right there … So, I use that little fruit stand all the time it's open because it's a farmer and they come directly from the farm to us. It doesn't travel 5,000 miles or something. It's not wrapped in plastic. (Tina, 76 F)
Tina's careful management of her food consumption is demonstrated by her commitment to avoiding ‘junk’, purchasing chemical-free food directly from the farms and engaging in food preparation, a task that typically takes her several hours each week. Her narrative highlights her knowledge and commitment to choosing foods that are ‘good’ in the dual sense that is healthy and demonstrates her fulfillment of her duty to age well.
The consumption of organic food emerged as an important aspect of daily living for participants that was tied to the maintenance of good health and disease prevention, which may be reflective of both the gender of the participants and the resources available to them. Pippa, for example, connected her commitment to organic food with her survival of cancer and her continued disease-free state:
See, I've had two bouts of cancer myself, one when I was 40 and then a second one, I don't know how old I was, 60, I think, early sixties maybe. And so, but even before then, like, I've always believed in healthy eating, but that sort of set me on the path. I don't eat much that isn't … most everything that I can find, if we can find it, is organic. (Pippa 84 F)
Pippa's consumption of organic foods was conspicuous and frequently emphasised throughout her interviews as forming a key aspect of her construction as a ‘healthy’ ageing adult. During one interview in her home, she prepared a snack of pecans, blueberries and cream cheese from certified organic ingredients and recounted the various health food stores across the city that she had to scour to purchase them. Pippa's weekly shopping ritual involved travelling across the city to at least three separate grocery stores and markets to purchase organic food items, often taking several hours. The organic certification of her food and the extensive work and resources involved in their purchase illustrated Pippa's commitment to responsible and active management of her ageing body, while the ‘purity’ of her food communicates her morality.
Distancing oneself from old others
‘Oldness’ or being ‘old’, in the context of positive ageing, has been divorced from chronological age and transformed into a social category with complex relationships to both the physical appearance and condition of the body and the subjective experience of age located in particular social contexts (Featherstone and Hepworth Reference Featherstone, Hepworth, Featherstone, Hepworth and Turner1991). Consistent with other studies, participants emphasised passivity, inactivity and loss of agency as characteristics that signalled ‘oldness’ (Guell et al. Reference Guell, Shefer, Griffin and Ogilvie2001; Laliberte Rudman Reference Laliberte Rudman2015; Stenner, McFarquhar and Bowling Reference Stenner, McFarquhar and Bowling2010), stressing that these characteristics and the ‘others’ who demonstrate them were to be avoided both personally and socially. Participants’ rejection of passive activities associated with ‘oldness’ was coupled with accounts of their participation in physical or ‘youthful’ activities that demonstrated their capacities and not-old identities.
I still do all the things I used to do. I always do. I garden a lot in the summer and, you know, I read a lot, and I'm very interested in politics. I find that the seniors that are at the Senior Centres, a lot of them are that generation just before me. And so, they have a different way of looking at the world than I do … so I don't find that I have a lot in common with older seniors. And I've never felt like a senior citizen. I know people see me that way. I look that way, but inside I don't relate to that … I mean I do what I've always done, except for work. And I worked until I was 70. (Sonia, 76 F)
Agency surfaced as a meaningful concept, and the ability to engage in meaningful activities and exercise one's agentic capacities through activity choice appeared to be an important aspect of positive ageing. Sonia highlights how her ability to maintain her midlife lifestyle is an integral part of her youthful identity that overrides or cancels out her appearance as a ‘senior citizen’, revealing the ‘truth’ of her youthfulness. Her capacity to engage in physical, mental and social activities that she finds meaningful signals her distance from the spectre of ‘oldness’ and dependency gestured by the appearance of her ageing body. Her narrative reveals an important contradiction in the discourse and subjective nature of the related practices, as her account erases the possibility that those she characterises as being ‘old’ and ‘passive’ might themselves be continuing to ‘do what they've always done’ and exercising choice over their activities.
Other participants also constructed narratives of exceptionality in which they invoked comparisons with younger people as a way to position themselves and their physical abilities as remarkable and in defiance of the limitations expected of their ageing bodies. Sarah aligned herself and her abilities with that of the middle-aged women she met through an internet meet-up group that connects people interested in fitness:
I am fairly active in a lot of – well I don't know how many people my age are – you know how active they are … when you're 72, a lot of people think oh, I'm 72 – they – to me age is just a number … A lot of those activities that I sign up for in the groups, they are younger people, like when I went stand-up paddle-boarding they said that I was the oldest person they ever had, but-but I was better than a lot of the younger ones … I'm used to being around young people, and the group is – is mixed. Like the older ones, they play cards, and you know, go out to dinner, and it's the younger ones that do activities. So the forties and fifties is the main age group, and I have no problem whatsoever with them. (Sarah, 72 F)
Sarah positions herself as unlike and distinct from people her age, whom she describes as inactive and interested in ‘passive’ activities such as playing cards and going out to dinner. In contrast to their sedentary lifestyle, she aligned herself with younger women in their forties and fifties, with whom she participated in various challenging physical activities such as roller skating, horseback riding, paddle boarding and volleyball. In aligning herself and her capabilities with women 20–30 years her junior, Sarah highlights her success as an ageing citizen, whose actions and choices have enabled her to maintain, and in some cases, surpass the physical function and capabilities of much younger women. Her exceptional level of fitness was a meaningful part of Sarah's identity and sense of herself as a good citizen and as someone who is ageing successfully:
I had a rare form of cancer … It's a rare form of cancer where it doesn't respond to chemo or radiation – and the maximum that people live is three years … everybody I knew died. And [the doctor] said – and so he thinks that I was a miracle because I was fit and so active, he thinks that's what saved me … And it's been 12 years. Yeah. And so I'm sure – he's sure that it's because, and that's what he did in his report, that it was because I was so fit and so active, all the time. (Sarah, 72 F)
Sarah's physically fit body and her level of activity are configured as literal life-saving attributes in her narrative that enable her to defy the odds of illness and continue to thrive in her later life.
Distancing oneself from confused, old others
Cognitive decline, confusion and the lack of one's ability to advocate for oneself emerged in the narratives as key markers of ‘oldness’. Participants frequently contrasted the perceived diminished cognitive capacities of others to their own mental sharpness as a strategy to demonstrate their positive ageing. Individuals suffering from decline were often blamed for their fates by participants, who invoked comparisons to the lifestyle practices of ‘old’ others as a way to highlight the responsibility of their own lifestyle choices:
It was a stroke and probably wouldn't reoccur. She's supposed to stop smoking. This is a lady who smoked her whole life. And she's not supposed to drink, and she's a drinker too and … the longer I can be self-sufficient the healthier you are … and you see with my poor friend whose mind is going and, that is so scary. [She's] younger. She's all of five feet, 90 pounds. She's a tiny little thing. Mind you; she hasn't taken care of herself … I'm glad that I have taken care of myself … When I talk to her, she'll tell me stories that I know already. But then it's hard, you know because she calls me and she wants to tell me all the news, and she can't remember what she's told me before. (Lily, 74 F)
Lily positioned cognitive decline as a necessary outcome of her friend's failure to take care of herself, and her irresponsible smoking and drinking. The cost of her irresponsibility was steep, rendering her dependent, vulnerable, confused and an object of pity. Lily distanced herself from the possibility of such cognitive and physical decline by positioning herself as a responsible consumer of health information and advice. She emphasised her own self-sufficiently and health-promoting lifestyle choices, highlighting the individualised responsibility for health. Further, she credits her actions with enabling her to remain healthy and also allowing her to take on an active, caring role for her (irresponsible) friend.
In alignment with positive ageing discourses, older adults experiencing cognitive decline were positioned as passive subjects lacking agency, and objects of pity inscribed into a perpetually vulnerable position from which there is no return.
In the summer, they have – they change your hours [at the pool] … Women were wandering in there, and they were all mixed up. They hadn't paid attention to the change, and there was one, she was totally thrown by it. And – and didn't know – there was another one didn't know what to do with herself, because she couldn't go in the water while they – while the aquafit class was going on. And they kept wandering in and out. And the guy that was leading the class kept telling them they couldn't come into the water until the class was over. But because it was a different time they were mixed up … And it's those people that get so easily confused that I kind of feel sorry for them when I know perfectly well that a lot of times they're … not treated with respect. (Pippa, 84 F)
In Pippa's account, the women's inability to comprehend the changes to the pool schedule highlights the sharp demarcation between healthy ageing and problematic decline and dysfunction. As signs of cognitive loss and decline, the confusion of the women signals their descent into ‘oldness’ and foreshadows their loss of agency and identity. In contrast, Pippa's ability to comprehend the new schedule, arrive at the appropriate time and participate in the fitness class made visible her ability to navigate life as an agentic subject who is positively ageing.
Tensions in the discourses
The ways that participants talked about and approached their ageing and the ageing of others often aligned with positive ageing discourses, connecting responsible bodywork and risk management to ageing well. Their speech also revealed the ways in which positive ageing discourses incite ageing citizens to engage in a continuous, relentless and uncertain pursuit of youth, vitality and health while providing few interpretive resources to understand bodily decline as anything other than a signal of impending old age and failure. In an interpretive context where bodily decline is not constructed as a ‘normal’ or ‘natural’ part of ageing, participants’ speech highlighted tensions within the discourses where their experiences and understandings of their bodies or the bodies of others did not line up with or bumped up against the discourse. Their narration of such moments illuminated tensions that arise through the interplay of their embodied experiences of change or physical limitation and the interpretative framework in which they are situated in relation to ageing:
I want to be in my home until I die. There's no way I want to end up in managed care. So I'm trying to – I mean I have to go back to – I've got a bit of a hip problem I've developed, and I have to go back for physiotherapy to keep the range of motion in it. That's about the only real restriction that I've had other than high blood pressure, which I can't do anything about. It's hereditary. But I've always been a very healthy person physically, and I want to stay that way as long as I can because I've just seen too many seniors go right down. You start developing health problems; you're probably dead within five to six years. (Sonia, 82 F)
Sonia's construction of herself as a ‘very healthy’ person who is ageing positively runs up against her hypertension and hip problem; bodily conditions that have the potential to signal decline and the possibility that she too, like ‘many seniors’, could be on a downward trajectory in accordance with an overarching narrative of decline. Sonia distanced herself from this possibility by labelling her hypertension as a ‘hereditary’ condition, outside the boundaries of individual control, while emphasising her intentions to manage her ‘hip problem’ responsibly. Such narrative positioning enabled her to retain her identity as a successful and responsibly ageing subject.
The tenuousness of the promise of continued health and vitality offered up through positive ageing discourses was revealed in subtle references to the ever-present threat of old age in the narrative accounts, highlighting the way in which fear of dependency functions as a ‘negative social imaginary’ in the lives of ageing citizens (Gilleard and Higgs Reference Gilleard and Higgs2010).
There is a woman there … we are almost identical in size and shape and haircut … we chat in the weight room … honestly, she is my size and quite active, but she had some – just discovered accidentally almost some heart issues, she had to have a – I don't know if it was an angioplasty or a stent or something put in. (Dorothy, 65 F)
Dorothy's account of the unexpected heart condition of a woman who is remarkably similar to her functioned as an admission of the possibility of her decline and made visible the potential that her body, despite her efforts, may also ‘betray’ her and that the avoidance of disease might be outside her control.
The reliance on health and independence as parameters to measure both successful ageing and good citizenship locate ageing adults in a vulnerable position where the prospect of failure is always looming on the horizon, despite the many responsible investments in self-care and bodily management. This threat was highlighted in Joan's narrative. Throughout her interviews, Joan constructed herself as a responsible ageing citizen who approached bodily management and optimisation with vigour; however, despite her intensive work she confessed to experiencing some unexpected, physical limitations:
Two weeks ago, unfortunately, I had acute pain in my right hip, and I was walking with a cane, and I was really hurt, I was told to rest for a week. Well, we did some investigations, but hey, it was fine the Olympics were on, and it was a good excuse to sit in front of the television for a week. I think that was the only time I've ever done that. You know something, it's kind of funny because I'm not so afraid of dying. I'm afraid of living too long. So, I don't want to live too long. If I can't be active I would like, I've already put that in, I want euthanasia. (Joan, 84 F)
Joan positioned dependency as a fate worse than death, asserting her control and agency over her body and self through the creation of a contingency plan in the event of decline, dependency and the loss of her ability to be active. Communicating her desire for euthanasia to her family was her planning for the eventuality of her ‘oldness’, ensuring her ability to retain agency over her own life and body even in dependency. Joan's assertion that death would be preferable to dependency lays bare the ageism that underpins the positive ageing discourses, reinforcing the idea that ‘oldness’ is not a valuable or livable subjectivity.
Discussion
Our findings highlight the day-to-day, lived negotiations through which positive ageing discourses are taken up, enacted and performed by older adults. Resonating with previous studies, participants articulated their responsible citizenship through their accounts of health-promoting or protecting practices in the areas of diet, exercise and activity (Bryant, Corbett and Kutner Reference Bryant, Corbett and Kutner2001; Guell et al. Reference Guell, Shefer, Griffin and Ogilvie2001), in which organic foods, frequent physical activity and engagement with the social world signalled their status as good citizens and their fulfillment of the ‘duty to age well’ (Kemp and Denton Reference Kemp and Denton2003; Laliberte Rudman Reference Laliberte Rudman2015). Extending from previous studies, our results highlight how discourses of gender interact and align with positive ageing discourses, shaping how older adults take up and enact responsibilities for ageing well.
In this study, female participants’ accounts of healthy ageing were centrally concerned with disciplinary practices of diet and exercise, and articulated the ethical imperative of cultivating a healthy, fit body, illuminating how discourses of healthy ageing intersect with the powerful normalising strategies that Susan Bordo (Reference Bordo1993) describes as the ‘tyranny of slenderness’. Bordo argues that discourses of fitness, diet and bodily management are deeply intertwined with notions of morality and citizenship, and operate as technologies of normalisation that aim to produce docile, slender female bodies (Bordo Reference Bordo1993). This idealised female body, in turn, signals the responsible citizenship and morality of the subject. The self-limitation of women's desires and consumption of various resources (i.e. food sources, health-care dollars, state resources) is a central aspect of hegemonic femininity (Bartky Reference Bartky1990) and is intensified for older women who are called to demonstrate and establish their moral integrity in light of their at-risk bodies. As citizen-making technologies, the disciplinary practices of risk reduction and responsible bodywork produce particular kinds of docile, gendered citizens that align with feminine ideals related to embodiment, comportment and consumption. Our findings suggest that positive ageing discourses are taken up and incorporated in the lives of older women in ways that align with the hegemonic scripts of femininity. This supports the argument that neoliberal framings of healthy citizenship and the practices of ‘body-consciousness’ through which it is enacted are deeply gendered (Moore Reference Moore2010).
Strikingly, the small number of male participants in our study (N = 3) did not focus their narratives on dietary practices, but rather they articulated their accounts of successful ageing through references to their cognitive capacities and to a lesser extent the physical capacities of their bodies. While our sample size is small and generalisations about how older men take up and negotiate positive ageing discourses cannot be made from our data, the rich and nuanced accounts of daily life shared by the participants shed light on how positive ageing discourses interact with and are shaped by gender. The findings suggest that such discourses direct older men and women towards different modalities of civic fitness and support the findings of previous research (Calasanti Reference Calasanti2005; Calasanti and King Reference Calasanti and King2005; Smith et al. Reference Smith, Braunack-Mayer, Wittert and Warin2007). Future studies could explore the ways that masculinity interacts with positive ageing discourses to produce particular gendered responsibilities for ageing well.
The forms of responsible ageing subjectivities articulated in this study illuminate how power, as a productive force, is at once enabling and constraining. The re-framing of old age as a time of continued enjoyment, function and productivity creates new possibilities for agency and new spaces for older adults to be seen as responsible and valuable citizens. However, these expansions in the field of possibilities for later life are in part enabled through the discursive framing of older people as both vulnerable and ‘at-risk’ of decline, which in turn operate to intensify and expand older adults’ responsibilities for self-management and bodywork. This, according to Timonen (Reference Timonen2016), is the central paradox of positive ageing whereby older adults as individuals are charged with ‘solving’ the collective problems associated with an ageing population.
Moreover, the choice to take up and engage in robust regimes of bodywork responsibly is not made in an open field of agentic possibilities; rather, it is made within a constrained field in which risk-reducing bodywork and disciplinary practices are positioned as the only legitimate and intelligible choices for older adults. What is obscured in the discourse is the significant inequalities between and among older adults and the inaccessibly of these choices for many. In this context, making the ‘wrong’ choice has significant implications as the burden of responsibility for ill-health, decline and dependency is shifted on to individual subjects and rendered evidence of failure to self-govern. In this unequal context, the socially stratified nature of ageing is obscured, and individuals with high socio-economic status have a distinct advantage (Timonen Reference Timonen2016).
Participants in this study were resource-rich, able-bodied and in good health, and thus were able to ‘choose’ to engage in the promoted practices of self-governance, enacting their identities as responsible ageing citizens. The vast resources required to participate in ‘productive’ forms of bodywork suggest that the meaning that older adults can assign to their bodywork is predicated on both their bodily capacities and resources. For the resource-rich participants in our study, their extensive commitment to promoted practices of physical activity and consumption was meaningful and articulated their morality, responsibility and productivity as ageing citizens. We suggest that as technologies of governance, positive ageing discourses transform older adults’ intensive bodywork practices into a work-like activity that creates value to society through the pursuit of health maintenance and optimisation and the deferment of dependency, enabling the body to be configured as a new terrain for productivity.
The civic and moral imperative of the ‘duty to age well’ and defer the onset of ‘old age’ through the exercise of one's agentic capacities was well-defined in the participants’ accounts of their self-management, bodily monitoring and risk avoidance. While participants constructed themselves as agentic ageing subjects whose responsible bodily management had yielded a variety of positive bodily and cognitive outcomes, occasional points of tension and ambiguity emerged where the discourse did not map on to their lived experiences or their knowledge of others. The potential for decline and bodily failure loomed in the background of the narratives, often acknowledged through subtle references that highlighted the bleakness of dependency and emphasised the devastation associated with the loss of agency. For the resource-rich participants, who have typically assumed individual responsibility for their success, dependence was often constructed as a fate ‘worse than death’. This view of dependence may be unique to older adults who have benefited from the cumulative advantages of economic, social and racial privileges, and thus have ‘further to fall’ from the loss of their social position and identity as a responsible citizen.
Perhaps in light of their privileged positions, for our participants there was a tentativeness in speaking about the eventuality of their selves as falling into ‘oldness’ and what effect this may have on their lives. When such futures were mentioned, they were often coupled with descriptions of the various strategies of bodily management participants were currently engaged in as an effort to defer ‘old age’ as long as possible, highlighting the precarity of the successful ageing identity. Such moments highlighted how the bodywork practices that older adults rigorously and continuously engage in are not so much directed towards the pursuit of ageless ageing, but rather are a response to the inescapable threat of dependency, decline and loss of agency, affirming the ageist underpinnings of the discourses.
As constitutive and regulatory technologies of governance, positive ageing discourses enable governing ‘at a distance’ (Rose Reference Rose2001), propelling ageing adults towards idealised forms of youthful subjectivities and directing their conduct in ways that align with neoliberal rationality. The moral underpinnings of this self-governance incite judgement of the self and others for perceived failures to manage the ageing body and locate the blame for such failures on individual subjects while obfuscating the effects of the social and economic context in which they are situated. The exclusionary potential of the discourse was clearly visible in the findings, as participants consistently engaged in othering practices, identifying older adults experiencing decline or dependency as socially undesirable, failed citizens, and drawing on their perceived irresponsibility as evidence to highlight their responsibility and status as positive ageing subjects.
The bodily and economic resources of our participants may also explain the prevalence of othering practices in the narrative accounts. For older adults who have and continue to experience relative privilege and social recognition as ‘responsible’ and ‘moral’ citizens through the mastery of their bodies and lives, the loss of this privilege may be particularly devastating to their sense of self and identity. Articulating the perceived failures of others to engage in responsible conduct may be one mechanism by which older adults affirm and secure a sense of safety in their identities as successful agers. However, these practices of othering have real social and political effects. They operate to shift blame for decline, dependency and other negative outcomes associated with ageing to individuals and their failure to apply their resources and capacities responsibly and to manage their personal risks. Our findings illustrate the pervasiveness of positive ageing discourses and their expansion into the new terrains of productivity and cognition. This expansion gives rise to increased possibilities for intervention, governance and self-governance, and creates the potential for further categories of exclusion, raising important questions about the implications for adults growing older in Canadian society.
Acknowledgements
We thank the 14 participants in this study for their participation and enthusiasm for the project. This research was generously funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). This study received approval from the Office of Human Research Ethics at Western University. All authors have substantially contributed to the development of this paper and have agreed to the authorship order. We have no conflicting interests that influenced this research.
