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Abstract
LGBTQ ageing is an under-researched but vital issue, given the cultural invisibility of older LGBTQ individuals and Italy's ageing population. This article explores initiatives around LGBTQ ageing, considered in relation to the hypothesis that LGBTQ populations may develop effective strategies for ‘successful ageing’, by establishing queer cultural spaces and support networks. After a brief contextualisation of key issues the author focuses on a case study of a lesbian community in Bari which is planning a residential arrangement for ‘older lesbians’. Drawing on interviews conducted in January 2011, the coping strategies or forms of ‘resilience’ developed by this community are identified and analysed. It is argued that while plans for a residential facility remain unrealised, this community demonstrates a degree of ‘resilience across the life course’, through reciprocal support, and socio-cultural and political innovation. However, interviews also reveal the difficulties of progressing from an ‘imagined community’ to its concrete realisation.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks are due to the participants in this research for their generosity and support. Thanks also to the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments, and to Jane Traies, whose ground-breaking work inspired the author to tackle this subject
Notes
Notes
1. ISTAT Citation2010. This compares to 16% in the UK (Office for National Statistics Citation2011).
2. Lauren Andres and John Round of the University of Birmingham recently discussed ‘resilience’ in marginalised communities in their paper The Role of “Persistent Resilience” within Everyday Life: Communities Coping with Instability in Post-Crisis England', presented at the Max Planck Political Science conference ‘Coping with Instability in Market Societies’, 15–16 December 2011, Paris.
3. Financial and methodological support was provided by the University of Birmingham, for the project ‘Persistence Resilience’.
4. In Italian, adding an ‘s’ as a prefix usually gives the opposite meaning to the original term.
5. Arcigay is a non-profit association founded in 1985. See http://www.arcigay.it/who-we-are/. ArciLesbica was established as a separate association in 1996: http://www.arcilesbica.it/associazione.php.
6. In Italy, care for the elderly has traditionally been the responsibility of the family, not the state. This began to change in 1992 due to directive 502, ‘Objective: Ageing Persons’. However, health care for the elderly remains inadequate, varies from region to region, and suffers from poor coordination between local and regional services (Salvioli Citation2007; Nesti et al. Citation2003, 11).
7. De Vries and Blando (Citation2004, 19), discussing the work of Friend and Michael Kimmel; see also Heaphy, Yip and Thompson (Citation2003, 8), and, on Italy, Veneziani (Citation2006, 136).
8. Judith Butler discusses how recognition as a queer subject is fundamental to achieving ‘personhood’ (2004, 32–33). Lack of recognition, or the cancelling out of queer identities in heteronormative society, can have sustained, harmful effects on well-being.
9. See Meshal and McGlynn (Citation2004). Much of this work assumes a heteronormative family life. This is not to imply that LGBTQ individuals do not have grandchildren since: (1) while artificial insemination for same-sex couples is not available in Italy, this procedure can be obtained abroad; (2) many women who identify as lesbians, and some gay men, have children from previous heterosexual relationships. See Danna and Bottino (Citation2005) on queer parenting in Italy.
10. In a recent study of LGBT experiences in Turin, the sample included men aged 50–67 but no women aged over 49 (Saraceno et al. Citation2003, 254).
12. This view is based on information on the ArciGay website and personal conversations with ArciLesbica activists.
14. My translation.
15. Interview with Enzo Cucco, a member of the group, January 2011. All further references are to this interview.
16. This association is now known as the Federazione Italiana della Mutualità Integrativa Volontaria (FIMIV) (Italian Federation of Integrative Voluntary Mutuality [FIMIV]). See http://www.fimiv.it/default.asp
17. A new coinage from the Italian word ‘cuore’ (heart) and the word ‘queer’. See http://www.quore.org/
18. Source: personal interview with Battaglia, January 2011.
19. For discussion and statistics see Barbagli and Colombo (Citation2001, 186–94).
20. For details see: http://www.arcilesbica.it/bari/bariarcobaleno/bariarcobaleno.htm
21. An ArciLesbica group was established in 2002.
23. This view is confirmed by research; see Nesti et al. (Citation2003); Salvioli (Citation2007); Pietrantoni, Sommantico, and Graglia (Citation2000).
24. Sources: website and interviews.
25. http://www.sappho-stiftung.de/index.html. See Milletti Citation2009, 6.
27. Four interviewees preferred not to provide this information. Thanks to James Knight for his assistance in analysing the data. The software for the SNA analysis was Ucinet 6 for Windows Version 6.310 (Borgatti, Everett and Freeman Citation2002). The diagrams were produced in NetDraw 2.098 (Borgatti Citation2002).
28. Research in other contexts shows that this is a typical composition for a lesbian support network. See Barker (Citation2004).
29. Contact was made by phone, email or in person.
30. See the Stonewall report on lesbian sexual health in the UK: http://www.stonewall.org.uk/at_home/health/2660.asp. There are no statistics available on the Italian context.
31. On women's precarious place in the Italian workplace see Sconvegno 2007.
32. See the ‘Codice Civile’, ‘Libro II delle successioni’, Art. 536 onwards. http://www.codice-civile.com/libro-secondo-delle-successioni.htm
33. http://www.nelnomedelladonna.org. See Milletti (Citation2009, 8).