Introducing Social Geographies
some form of disability, and a small minority ever need any level of social care
(McGlone, 1992). Yet, the association is pervasive and affects our own and others’
perceptions of our identities (see Box 7:3).
The labelling of the ageing body has been described as central to ageism and
experiences of old age as a distinct and different stage of life (Harper, 1997). Harper
(1997:183) suggests that notions about the physical body, especially its finality, have
become replaced with the cultural notion of frailty: the idee that death and decline
can be controlled, ‘somehow transcended by science’. Thus old age is no longer seen
2s inevitable, and those older people who do nat avoid becoming frail are distanced
from other life-stages and the spaces associated with them, Harper argues that:
Copyrighted materialThe degree and speed at which individuals show signs of physiological ageing is not just
a genetic lottery; it is influenced by income and class, and ethnicity and gender (Pain,
Mow and Talbot, 2000). Increasingly, some people can resist physiological ageing, but it
is also read differently by others ~ consider the different implications for men and women
of acquiring the first facial wrinkles and white hairs.
Social age
Social age involves generally held beliefs and attitudes about the capability of people
of different ages and the social and spatial behaviour which is appropriate for them
(ageism). These attitudes have a considerable impact on the opportunities of older
and younger people and also on how they view themselves (see Box 7.3)
1.2. Geographies of age: from spatial patterns to spatial
constructions
These developments in how we understand ‘age’ have implications for the issues which
are studied and the ways they are approached by social geographers. Earlier work, which
focused on spatial pattems of residence, welfare and service provision, tended to be in
the positivist, empiricist tradition (see Chapter |, section 1.3.1) — for example, see the
collection edited by Wames (1982). In such research, ‘age’ tends to be taken for granted
as a category of analysis and is rarely questioned; instead the aim has been to make
suggestions for policies which impact on either older people or children. While such
work clearly has a place in geography as well as a broader role to play, a growing critique
has emphasized what it has left out; in particular that the spatial construction of age,
generation and lifecourse has been relatively little explored compared with identities of
race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality (see Chapters 5 and 6)
In recent years geographers have begun to redress this balance, often adopting new
theoretical and methodological positions. Boxes 7.4 and 7.5 summarize some important
contributions to debates over how best te explore the interrelationships between space
and different age identities. As you can see, there are a number of parallel issues in how
geographers have recently approached research on older people and children. However,
it is worth noting that there is still a far larger literature on children in geography than on
older people, and that this work has always been more diverse, including humanistic
approaches (eg, Hart, 1979) and radical perspectives (eg. Bunge, |973)
These shifts in perspective have been accompanied by new epistemological and
methodological positions. The problems of representing these groups are obvious, as
academic geographers largely belong to the middle age groups. Research using
qualttative and ethnographic methods has helped to elucidate geographies of age and
ageing, allowing children and older people to speak for themselves and interpret their
own lives. As Matthews and Limb (1999) have recently argued, geograshical research
should entail and encourage participation. For example, to get round some of the
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aIntroducing Social Geographies
Box 7.4 Rethinking the geography of ageing
Ina review of work on geographies of ageing and older people, Harper and Laws (1995)
made a number of suggestions. They argued that recent theoretical advances in the
social sciences have been neglected in much geographical work on ageing, and that the
following perspectives should contribute to the theoretical basis of geographers’ work in
‘order to make it more critical, challenging and relevant:
+ political economy theory, which highlights the institutionally created status of old age.
+ feminist theory, which informs accounts of alder women's experiences, the
‘feminization’ of old age, and epistemological issues in researching ‘old age’
postmadernism, which emphasizes the geographical and cultural variability in meanings
of ‘old age’, points to a diversity of ‘elderly’ identities, and to the need for exploration
cof how relations of age, race, gender, class and sexuality are constructed and lived out
differently over time and space.
They also argued for further use of qualitative methodologies in order to explore the
geographies of older people through their own eyes and voices,
(Source: Harper and Laws, 1995)
Box 7.5 The geography of children
A debate in the journal Area in the early 1990s raised some of the issues and
contradictions inherent in studying children’s geographies, Importantly,
+ the relationship between structure and agency: it is important to examine the
influence of adults’ control over children's spaces, but also to acknowledge that
children create their own spaces as well as profoundly influencing the geographies of,
‘their parents and other carers.
+ social difference: the experience of childhood and children’s geographies differ greatly
between children of differem ages, classes, gender, ethnicity, places and times,
+ methodology: achieving a perspective that is truly ‘through children’s eyes’ means not
just doing research ‘on’ children, but adopting appropriate methodologies which allow
children to speak for themselves.
(Gee James, 1990; Sibley, 1991; Winchester, 1991)
problems of accessing and representing children in an intensive account of children’s
streetlives, McKendrick (/997) has focused on one local street and one child (the street
where he lived, and his own daughter). This gave him the benefit of being a participant
observer, but at the same time complicated his involvement because as well as
researcher he was, as a parent, directly positioned in the power relations which
structured the children’s spatial lives.
1507.3 Space, identity and age
The emphasis of geographical research has shifted, then, from spatial patterns to an
interest in the spatial construction of age, In the first part of this chapter we outlined
some of the ways in which age may be sodally constructed — for example, through limits
on labour market participation, or through common ideologies about bodily appearance
and function. In the remainder of the chapter, drawing on examples of geographical
research, we illustrate how age is also spatially constructed, and suggest that this is an
important dimension of age which cannot be separated from its social construction. Just
as social geographers consider particular places and spaces to have particular gendered
identities,
The material spaces and places in which we live, work and engage in leisure activities are
oge-graded and, in tun, age is associated with particular places and spaces, Our
metephorical social positon also varies with increasing oge as old age is peripheralized (its
immense disadvantage) into discrete locaviors, walle ‘youth is everywhere’
(Laws, 1997:91)
Whether youth is ‘everywhere’ is perhaps arguable; while it may generally be true of
popular culture, there are many other spaces and avenues of power where children and
young people are denied access or a voice. However, Laws’ point is that ‘where we are
says a lot about who we are ... aged identities are not only the product of particular
s, 1997: 93). If we
conceptualize ‘age’ in terms of an identity which is socially constructed, rather than a
spatialities but ... they also constitute spaces and places’ (Lay
category which is stati
then space and place have a number of interrelated roles. For
example:
+ People have different access to and experiences of space and place on the basis of
their age.
+ Spaces have their own age identities, which have implications for those who use
them.
+ People may actively create and resist particular age identities through thei- use of
space and place.
In the rest of this chapter we examine these themes in more detail, illustrating them with
recent examples of geographical research on young people, children and older people.
7.3.1 People have different access to and experiences of space and place on
the basis of their age
The most obvious and visible social geography of age is the different access to space
which people have on the basis of their chronological (or apparent) age. In most
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