Curious conceptions: learning to be old

Abstract

The ageing of the population in western societies has aroused great concern and interest in recent years as the so-called ‘baby-boomers’ begin to retire, leaving a seemingly depleted workforce. Society and the individuals within it learn the ‘truths’ of being aged or old through the normalizing of gerontological, demographic and economic knowledge, where ‘the old’ are marginalized as the unimaginable other, taking up resources through their increasing dependence. Using aspects of my research on women experiencing retirement, I outline such learning as it specifically relates to women who have been constituted as ‘other’ all our lives. Being old is yet another such formulation. As a means to counter such learning I suggest we develop what Foucault calls curiosity, not to uncover ‘the truth’ but as ‘a readiness to find what surrounds us strange and odd; a certain determination to throw off familiar ways of thought and to look at the same things in a different way’ (M. Foucault, The masked philosopher, in: P. Rabinow (Ed.) Michel Foucault: ethics, subjectivity and truth (vol. 1) (London, Penguin, 1994/1980), p. 325). Through the deployment of such curiosity we may be able to unlearn how we have been constituted as old women.

Notes

1. All names used in this paper are pseudonyms.