A Post-age Inquiry of Intergenerational Practice Facilitation

Abstract

(Re)connecting ‘young’ and ‘old’ seems common sense. Intergenerational ways of living, being, and knowing together make so much sense that interventions to reinstate them in countries such as England are ‘of course’ justified. But these practices are similarly so taken-for-granted that they were, and still may be, forgotten. Whilst the un/subtle violence(s) of normalised ageism proliferate in public spaces, services and pandemic responses, renewed hope in intergenerational programmes for promoting socially connected lives and anti-ageist futures (WHO, 2021), stirs. Yet, ageist assumptions and practices are so pervasive that they inadvertently infiltrate these programmes designed to purposefully bringing generations together. These are sites where expectations about who can participate and how, about who and what facilitates relations, and about who needs intervention in the first place, enact differences continually in the making. The separating notion of the inter-generational itself works to divert attention away from those in-between ‘young’ and ‘old’ - middling (Manning, 2019) – such as practitioners and more-than-human facilitators. Herein lies the social justice imperative for care-ful attention to who and what goes unnoticed and undervalued, so that they may be re-membered (Barad, 2010).
In response, I offer a critically hopeful post-age perspective. As a philosophical and pedagogical practice, the post-age contemplates how age difference(s) come to matter (Barad, 2007) and challenges the idea of age as a stable temporal maker upon which to rest expectations. The hope is this might animate age-transgressive potential (Haynes and Murris, 2017). Below, five thesis-making concepts (play, time, memory, middles, and care) disrupt logics imposed by an individualising, neoliberal higher education system I simultaneously seek to be accredited by, assimilated within, and actively trouble. Enacting the post-age as a posthuman and (post-)qualitative practice to know and live by, with each concept I explore possibilities for doing intergenerational relations and research otherwise.

Date of Award	10 Dec 2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bristol
Supervisor	Debbie L Watson (Supervisor) & Karen West (Supervisor)