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Situating the life story narratives of aging immigrants within a structural context: the intersectional life course perspective as research praxis
Abstract
Research on racialized older immigrants does not fully acknowledge the interplay between the life course experiences of diverse populations and the structural conditions that shape these experiences. Our research team has developed the intersectional life course perspective to enhance researchers’ capacity to take account of the cumulative effects of structural discrimination as people experience it throughout the life course, the meanings that people attribute to those experiences, and the implications these have on later life. Here we propose an innovative methodological approach that combines life story narrative and photovoice methods in order to operationalize the intersectional life course. We piloted this approach in a study of the everyday stories of aging among diverse immigrant older adults in two distinct Canadian provinces with the goals of enhancing capacity to account for both context and story and engaging with participants and stakeholders from multiple sectors in order to influence change.
... Migration and aging are fundamentally transformative experiences: examining both phenomena together can help to disentangle how intersecting marginalizations and life events shape vulnerabilities and realities of older migrants (Brotman, Ferrer, and Koehn 2020;De Silva 2020;Grenier 2012;Karl and Torres 2016). Yet aging has oft been ignored in immigration theory, and vice versa; the life course approach has been positioned as a holistic framework poised to bridge this gap (Karl and Torres 2016;McDonald 2011). ...
... Yet aging has oft been ignored in immigration theory, and vice versa; the life course approach has been positioned as a holistic framework poised to bridge this gap (Karl and Torres 2016;McDonald 2011). Life course theory emphasizes the necessity of considering human lives within temporal and social context, through attention to time, place, interdependence, and agency (Brotman, Ferrer, and Koehn 2020;Elder 1994;Elder and Giele 2009;Treas and Gubernskaya 2016). This perspective considers aging not merely as a biological phenomenon, but as a dynamic process shaped by understandings of age and aging (Hunt 2005). ...
... Employing a life course approach at the intersection of migration and aging can deepen understandings of how an individual's past contributes to experiences of the present (De Silva 2020; Grenier 2012), as well as help unpack the cumulative impacts of discrimination on senior racialized immigrants (Brotman et al. 2020;Ferrer et al. 2017;Karl and Torres 2016). Additionally, it can add nuance to how culture may work in combination with migration trajectories and economic resources to shape care expectations (Kim 2010). ...
Canada’s care systems are ill-equipped to support its aging population, and this crisis intertwines with an acute shortage of affordable housing. Immigrants to Canada have a higher propensity to cohabitate multi-generationally, an arrangement that is sometimes romanticized as an ideal form of senior care. This article contributes to scholarship exploring intergenerational cohabitation as a practice of care, using life course research to consider how class and migration timing shape experiences of intergenerational living and senior care. Based on 19 in-depth interviews with immigrant seniors from Latin America and the Caribbean (n=10) and family caregivers (n=9) living in the Greater Toronto Area, this study uncovers two central findings. First, intergenerational living should not be viewed as an ideal form of senior care since (1a) some seniors resist intergenerational living, preferring independence and downtown residence nearer to culturally relevant communities and (1b) cohabitation does not always provide sufficient or better care. Second, access to smooth multigenerational cohabitation is inequitable, as housing arrangements are structured by class and migration timing, with middle-class families who have been in Canada longer facing fewer barriers to positive experiences of intergenerational living, compared to more recent migrants with lower incomes. This article challenges culturally essentializing assumptions about immigrant intergenerational cohabitation and argues that access to affordable housing is a senior care issue.
... Likewise, group storytelling was described in another study by an elder participant: "I would love to continue telling stories and sharing indigenous rituals with the youth…to do all that I am doing as a Filipino-American elder" (Anguluan-Coger, 2013: 141, participant perspective). For many older adults who experienced various forms of social exclusion, arts-based activities were an important means to engage with and be included in their communities (Brotman et al., 2019). ...
... Taylor et al. (2009) stated that lower English knowledge among older adult immigrants prevented them from participating in group activities where English was dominant. Although arts-based methods allow for non-verbal expression of experiences and emotions, interpreters and researchers who are familiar with the target group language and culture are still required to communicate study objectives, guide participants through research activities, and translate back findings to research consumers (Brotman et al., 2019;Fitzpatrick et al., 2012;Lager et al., 2012;Taylor et al., 2009). ...
... Arts-based methods are time consuming for participants and require prolonged engagement. Participants can lose motivation to continue with research activities if the topic is not interesting to them or does not accommodate their preferences Brotman et al., 2019;Fitzpatrick et al., 2012). Three of the studies highlighted the risk of reliving unpleasant memories which can cause emotional distress for participants (Brotman et al., 2019;Chaudhry, 2008;Mcleod and Ricketts, 2013). ...
This scoping review aims to describe the range of research studies using arts-based data collection methods with immigrant and racialized older adults. A secondary aim is to identify challenges and strengths of using these approaches with this population. This review uses Arksey and O'Malley’s five-stage scoping review framework with a final number of 16 references included for the study. Enhanced social connectedness, increased transparency and quality of findings, and self-empowerment were key strengths of using arts-based approaches for data collection. Challenges identified included resource limitations, cultural and language barriers, and barriers to meaningful engagement. Only a small number of studies have utilized arts-based methods with immigrant and racialized older adults. Arts-based approaches require unique methodological adaptations with this population but have the potential to increase engagement in research activities, authenticity of research findings and empowerment of older adults.
... A strength of digital narratives is that they allow people to engage with stories through mediums that are more accessible than scholarly journal articles, or other written formats. Of further importance to social work, recent research has also explored and applied visual documentation, such as the use of photovoice (Brotman et al., 2019) and art as catalysts for social change (Wehbi et al., 2017;Wehbi et al., 2018). For instance, Brotman et al. (2019), engaging with theories that integrate intersectionality and life course, utilize photovoice for the purposes of visually showcasing the structural barriers and lived experiences of older racialized immigrants as they settle and integrate into Canadian society. ...
... Of further importance to social work, recent research has also explored and applied visual documentation, such as the use of photovoice (Brotman et al., 2019) and art as catalysts for social change (Wehbi et al., 2017;Wehbi et al., 2018). For instance, Brotman et al. (2019), engaging with theories that integrate intersectionality and life course, utilize photovoice for the purposes of visually showcasing the structural barriers and lived experiences of older racialized immigrants as they settle and integrate into Canadian society. As a form of digital narrative, podcasting allows a storyteller's voice and emotions to be heard, and people can choose to listen to these stories on their own time and in their own way (Ferrer et al., 2019). ...
... For instance, Brotman et al. (2019), engaging with theories that integrate intersectionality and life course, utilize photovoice for the purposes of visually showcasing the structural barriers and lived experiences of older racialized immigrants as they settle and integrate into Canadian society. As a form of digital narrative, podcasting allows a storyteller's voice and emotions to be heard, and people can choose to listen to these stories on their own time and in their own way (Ferrer et al., 2019). ...
... We purposively sampled from immigrant communities that are scant or missing in the literature on immigrant older adults in Canada, even though some of these, such as immigrants from the Philippines and Korea, represent sizeable populations Carrière et al., 2016). A detailed description of our sample and research design can be found in Brotman et al. (2020). ...
... Data were collected by means of structural life-story narratives and photovoice, both of which aimed to foreground the voices of participants (Cunsolo Willox et al., 2013;Brotman et al., 2020). Structural life stories of our four case studies are presented here in a holistic fashion, rather than a series of thematic quotes disembodied from the lifecourse experiences of individual participants, and thus retain the context and nuances of each immigrant's experience (Shaw, 2017). ...
... Intersectionality brings to the lifecourse approach the recognition that compounding identities are important because, in specific contexts, they can facilitate or block access to power. Structural determinants that influence the lifecourse are thus rendered more apparent (Ferrer et al., 2017b;Brotman et al., 2020). Application of the intersectional lifecourse lens to our rich and diverse case studies has succeeded in extending the conversation about social isolation and loneliness beyond subjective-objective dualisms used to differentiate the two constructs (Weldrick and Grenier, 2018). ...
Research points to a higher risk for social isolation and loneliness among new immigrant and refugee older adults. Our article draws from a research project that explored the everyday stories of ageing among 19 diverse immigrant older adults in Canada. To capture their experiences of loneliness and social isolation, we use four illustrative cases derived from a structural approach to life-story narrative. To these we apply the intersectional lifecourse analytical lens to examine how life events, timing and structural forces shape our partici-pants' experiences of social isolation and loneliness. We further explore the global and linked lives of our participants as well as the categories of difference that influence their experiences along the continua of loneliness to belonging, isolation to connection. Finally, we discuss how an understanding of sources of domination and expressions of agency and resistance to these forces might lead us to solutions.
... Accessing services and settling in Canada pose multiple challenges for older adult INRs from Arabic-Speaking communities and this is mirrored in other studies on INR populations [7,[21][22][23][24][25][26]. Participants in our study, despite being connected to a social service organization, reported insufficient support in several areas. ...
... Programs and initiatives that support older adults are often different from those that support immigrants and refugees and involve different ministries, organizations, and levels of government, which has resulted in a lack of cohesion among formal supports across sectors [15]. Furthermore, INR older adults might not be aware of available health and social services in their communities, which can negatively impact their health [14,22,25,26]. Key recommendations to address the above-described gaps in services and supports include increasing information access, government income support programs, and language classes specific for older adults, and accessible housing options [30]. ...
Immigrant newcomers and refugees (INRs) are two migrant categories that experience consistent systemic barriers to settlement and integration in Canada as older adults. This paper explores the challenges experienced by Arabic-speaking INR older adults in Edmonton, Canada, during settlement and discusses policy and service implications. A qualitative description study using community-based participatory research principles was implemented to evaluate and support digital literacy in Arabic-speaking INR older adults. We included men and women aged 55 and older who identified as immigrants or refugees and spoke Arabic. Experiences of settlement challenges were consistently identified during data collection and engagement of INR older adult participants. A thematic sub-analysis of interviews with (10 individuals and one couple) of participants’ narratives was completed in 2022 and was used to identify themes related to settlement barriers for this population. Two main themes were identified: (1) Limited English skills and digital literacy gaps create service barriers for INR older adults, and (2) Gaps in services and policies as basic needs remain unmet. We describe key challenges experienced by INR older adults, such as language barriers, precarious finances, poor access to health care services and lack of transportation and employment opportunities, which hinder successful integration into the new society. This study showcases the ongoing challenges with early settlement and integration that continue despite Canada’s well-developed immigration settlement landscape. INR older adults often remain invisible in policy, and understanding their experiences is a first step to addressing their needs for resources that support healthy aging in the post-migration context.
... In line with Brotman et al. (2020) and Ferrer et al. (2017), we have incorporated intersectional perspectives to analyze the power relations in play among the different actors, within the cadenced time frames and structural dynamics the narratives evoke. We used an intersectional life course approach because it offers a solid theoretical basis for understanding a set of interlocking oppressions and identities. ...
... We used an intersectional life course approach because it offers a solid theoretical basis for understanding a set of interlocking oppressions and identities. We took into account individual situations and collective conditions, identification and differentiation based on sociodemographic and cultural factors, and the correlation between domination, power, and agency (Brotman et al., 2020). ...
This article discusses the results of a collaborative research project aimed at understanding the life trajectories of women who have self-identified as having used violence in a context other than self-defense, which is an understudied topic. Based on semi-structured interviews and aided by an intersectional feminist framework applied to life course theory, we present a qualitative analysis of 26 women's experiences of violence, precarity, and services. The three groups of trajectories are distinguished by level of precarity as determined by the experience of violence in childhood, socioeconomic and family contexts, criminalization, intensity of violence, and whether the women received adequate support. This shows (1) the need for interventions to prevent the reproduction or aggravation of violence suffered and perpetrated; (2) the importance of considering the inter-related factors (gender, class race, etc.) that contribute to the women's precarity; and (3) that these factors must be considered to understand the contexts in which women have come to use violence, without trivializing or excusing it, but rather properly situating it with a view to better preventing and intervening in these situations. Our recommendations are aimed at ensuring that social work practices do not contribute to the enforcement of punitive measures, but support women in pursuing their path.
... Data for the Lived Experiences of Aging Immigrants study were collected via life story narrative interviews and Photovoice. Brotman et al. (2020) argued that in combination, these two strategies operationalize theoretical tenets of the ILCP. Photovoice is a form of participatory action research that provides participants the opportunity to express themselves via photography. ...
... The forums were one component of an integrated community-engaged research and knowledge exchange strategy that began with the research design-a combined life story narrative/Photovoice approach that employed the ILCP to give space for the emergence of diverse voices and pathways often not represented in the academic literature (see Brotman et al., 2020;Ferrer et al., 2017). Together, the ILCP and Photovoice situate the diverse lived experiences of older immigrants in Canada relative to the structural and systemic barriers underlying their struggles, while centering participants' emphasis on their resistance and resilience. ...
This article reports on a series of Stakeholder Outreach Forums hosted in Canadian communities from 2018 to 2019. These forums built on a previous research project, The Lived Experiences of Aging Immigrants, which sought to amplify the voices of older immigrants through Photovoice and life course narratives analyzed through an intersectional life course perspective. The forums used World Café methods to encourage cumulative discussions among a broad range of stakeholders who work with or influence the lives of immigrant older adults. Participants viewed the previously created Lived Experiences of Aging Immigrants Photovoice exhibit, which provided a springboard for these discussions. The forums’ aim was to increase the stakeholders’ awareness of the experiences of immigrants in Canada as they age and to create space for the stakeholders to reflect upon and discuss the experiences of aging immigrants. Here we illustrate how the forums complement the narrative Photovoice research methodology and highlight the potential of Photovoice and targeted outreach strategies to extend academic research findings to relevant stakeholders. Across all forums, participants identified structural and systemic barriers that shape experiences of and responses to social exclusion in the daily lives of immigrant older adults. They further identified challenges and strengths in their own work specific to the issues of social inclusion, caregiving, housing, and transportation. Intersectoral solutions are needed to address the structural and systemic roots of exclusion at the public policy and organizational levels.
... Storytelling has emerged as a scientifically insightful and emotionally meaningful tool that empowers older people to draw upon socially accessible discourses (e.g., memories, language, multimedia materials) to vividly reconstruct their lived lives for the researchers, and to further make sense of their experiences and promote wellbeing [11][12][13]. As highlighted by Brotman, Ferrer and Koehn [14], talking about life histories can "capture the complex and intersecting identities of older adults and expose the often-invisible institutional structures and relationships of power that mark older adults' interactions with family, community, and the state in their everyday lives" (p.480). ...
... While acknowledging the positive impact of ageing, narrative gerontology also implies that biographical storytelling has particular relevance to emotional challenges in old age. As aforementioned, growing older may uniquely endure the risk of suffering from varied emotional challenges due to the multifaceted changes and losses alongside ageing [3,14]. Narratively speaking, many of these emotional challenges may not solely result from ageing but also have historical roots in older people's biography. ...
Background
Growing older is often associated with resilience, contentedness and inner growth. Older people however are also at risk of confronting unique emotional challenges as a result of varied ageing-related experiences. By employing a biographical lens, we aim to introduce storytelling as a methodological tool to more holistically explore older people’s emotional challenges and to improve their wellbeing.
Methods
Building upon theoretical understandings about the narrative construction of identity across the life span, we draw upon a qualitative study about older people’s loneliness as an example to showcase the methodological value and feasibility of biographical storytelling. We aim to better understand the nuanced and sometimes painful emotional experiences that can be encountered alongside ageing.
Results
Findings from the qualitative study we showcase, highlight that unique emotional pains and the (in)ability to deal with such in old age could be deeply rooted in older people’s earlier lives. These findings contextualise people’s emotional challenges and needs within their identity, as a narrative thread that links their past, present and expected future. As such, our example study shows that emotional challenges in old age are not only ageing-related, but can be more fundamentally connected to disruptions to the ongoing flow of narrative identity construction.
Conclusion
The highly retrospective and reflexive nature of these findings illustrates the methodological merit of biographical storytelling. We argue that the impact of biographical storytelling can go further than both conventional semi-structured narrative interviews and existing interventional tools. Instead, it is a particularly useful research methodology to explore human experiences and needs in the unique context of ageing. This methodological development thus provides an insightful analytical lens to explore how older people’s earlier life experiences may be carried forward and confronted to shape their emotional stability in the present and future stages of their ageing lives. Beyond the methodological significance, we further demonstrate the benefits of empowering older people to reconstruct their ageing lives in the context of their biography.
... childhood autism (Ha and Whittaker, 2016), Latina transgender identity (Rhodes et al., 2015), entertainment-education (Singhal et al., 2007), life course analysis of aging immigrants (Brotman et al., 2019), as well as youth empowerment and health education (Wilson et al., 2008). The method evolved into a popular form of participatory action research that can facilitate the exploration of shared experiences, critical reflection, as well as the needs of marginalized communities (Liebenberg, 2018). ...
... For researchers and sustainability practitioners, reflexive approaches to methods, such as these, can provide a more complex understanding of social, political, and economic dynamics, as well as insights into how environmental management programs are being put into practice and with what effects. Augmenting research praxis in these ways requires critical attention to the actions, embodied meanings, and personal linkages between researcher(s) and participant(s) (Brotman et al., 2019;England, 1994, Serra Undurraga, 2019. In this sense, reflexive approaches to research methods are crucial to socially just sustainability practices. ...
This article discusses methodological adaptations to participatory methods for reflexive environmental management. Reflexive approaches to research methods as process, this article contends, can elucidate social dynamics that standard sampling frames and rote procedures may elide. This argument is supported through a discussion of key insights from scholarship about participatory research methods, as well as auto-reflections on methodical adaptations undertaken while conducting photovoice research on environmental management in peri-urban villages of Southwest China. Reflexive adaptations to participatory methods discussed in this paper include ethnographic attention to forms of refusal, suspended participation, and individual interviews with and without visual aids. These methodological adaptations highlight relations of power between researchers and participants, as well as amongst participants. They also highlight diverse social needs and uneven environmental management processes. Although reflexive approaches to participatory methods are key to producing more widely representational findings and socially just sustainability practices, they are not a panacea for universal inclusivity. Reflexive methodological adaptations have their own limitations and introduce new power relations between participants and researchers. The article concludes with a discussion of how reflexive methodological adaptations bear on research praxis. In particular, the conclusion highlights how reflexive adaptations to research methods are crucial to socially just environmental management and sustainability practices.
... Research with ethnocultural communities can be both rewarding and emotionally challenging, especially for researchers who belong to these communities. Research with ethnocultural communities can incorporate strong social justice orientations that help tackle health disparities and that empower communities to build knowledge systems that respond to their needs (Brotman et al., 2020;Vaughn et al., 2017). On the other hand, working with communities that experience marginalization, such as ethnocultural minorities and immigrants, means that researchers engage in emotional labour as they reflect on observed inequities and power dynamics while trying to meet expectations for reciprocity (Dickson-Swift et al., 2009;Sterie et al., 2023). ...
Collaborating in qualitative research with immigrant older women is a rich and rewarding learning opportunity for novice researchers as it expands their understanding of the lived experiences of ethnocultural communities. Undergraduate students with the same ethnocultural and linguistic backgrounds as research participants can build trust and rapport in research settings and, hence, are often hired onto research teams to assist with research activities. Undergraduate students learn in the field via hands-on experience and introductory theoretical training in qualitative methods, yet there is little guidance on effective mentorship strategies and considerations for this group of novice researchers. This paper reflects on the experiences of two undergraduate student researchers (USRs) who were involved as research assistants in a qualitative research study on immigrant women’s experiences of aging in place in urban Canadian neighbourhoods. The undergraduate students learned to manage challenges in the field related to setting boundaries and emotional well-being, navigating the presence of family during interviews, and addressing the hesitancy of participants in the research process. This paper discusses strategies to enhance the qualitative research knowledge and participation of USRs who conduct research as insiders in ethnocultural communities. Knowledge generated from this paper will be useful in spurring forward the discussion on qualitative fieldwork training for undergraduate students.
... Black feminist and critical race theories have been instrumental in highlighting how race and age intersect to shape the health trajectories of older Black adults, emphasizing the cumulative impacts of inequities that extend beyond the physiological changes associated with aging (Garcia, Homan, et al., 2021;Millett et al., 2020;Tirupathi et al., 2020). These frameworks underscore the need to address how systemic racism and ageism interact over the life course (Brotman et al., 2020). Current research on COVID-19 has drawn on these theories to explain the disproportionate impacts of the pandemic on Black communities, revealing how longstanding systemic racism, intersecting with other forms of oppression such as ageism, contributed to unequal access to healthcare, economic vulnerabilities, and heightened exposure to the virus (Garcia, Homan, et al., 2021;Millett et al., 2020;Tirupathi et al., 2020). ...
Background and objectives
The paucity of research and policy on the impact of COVID-19 on the experiences of Black older adults in Canada and around the world has intensified the enduring impacts of racism on their health and well-being. To bridge this gap, our study explored the mental health of Black older adults in Montreal during the early period of the pandemic.
Research design and methods
Using an Afro-emancipatory mixed-method research design, we collected and analyzed data from three sources: a survey, focus group interview with service providers from Black community organizations, and individual interviews with Black older adults.
Results
Our findings reveal that Black older adults struggled with mental health challenges, including loss, grief, and intergenerational tensions, and encountered systemic barriers in accessing services. Despite these adversities, participants demonstrated remarkable resilience, drawing upon their faith and community networks for support.
Discussion and implications
This study illuminates the complex experiences of Black older adults during the pandemic and underscores the imperative of addressing mental health and systemic barriers. Understanding ongoing challenges is crucial for developing targeted interventions and policies that promote long-term resilience and equitable healthcare for Black older adults.
... Importantly, the images in a photovoice study are not supplements to a semi-structured interview, rather they are a means to the elicitation and understanding of experience. Owing to the significance of this visual/verbal relationship photovoice is often framed in terms of an inclusive research method and consequently has been used in a range of studies to capture the experiences of marginalised groups including older people generally (Mysyuk and Huisman, 2020) and older immigrants (Brotman et al, 2020). Limitations include difficulties in taking photographs due to problems with mobility, vision and/or functional ability which we sought to mitigate by offering help with taking photographs whilst family members and friends also helped where needed. ...
Background and objectives
This paper aims to add to the literature on successful ageing in minoritized ethnic groups. Concurring with the critiques of ‘successful ageing’ for focusing on values and abilities more attainable by white middle-class older people, it explores alternative discourses according to which older people from minoritized groups consider themselves to be ‘ageing well’.
Research design and methods
The paper draws on original empirical material derived from a longitudinal research project focused on five minority ethnic groups living in a city (and surrounding areas) of the UK known for its diverse population. It draws on photovoice methods conducted with the participants and analyses the material through (i) a focus on intersectionality as a framing device that is dynamic over time and (ii) phenomenological approaches to old age as a distinct life stage existentially.
Results
Although intersectionality is framed in the literature almost exclusively in terms of disadvantage, older participants made use of assets as well as deficits (which they often turned into assets) to construct a sense of meaning and purpose that enabled them to age well and flourish in often challenging circumstances.
Discussion and implications
The images and narratives presented here challenge the normative depictions of a good or successful old age constructed from the perspective of white and middle-class older adults. They add a diverse range of alternative depictions of ageing well which will be of help for clinicians and others in supporting diverse older people to flourish in conditions of health as well as frailty.
... Although gerontologists urge us to incorporate intersectionality into the study of ageing migrants (i.e., Brown, 2018;Ferrer, Grenier, Brotman, & Koehn, 2017;Torres, 2015Torres, , 2019 the interplay between social positions (such as age, gender, and migrancy) throughout the life course has not yet been fully acknowledged in research on racialised older migrants, which marginalises the diverse experiences of later life. However, there is an emerging interest in incorporating intersectional approaches in social gerontology (Brotman, Ferrer, & Koehn, 2020;Ferrer et al., 2017;Ferrer, Lee, & Khan, 2020;Holman & Walker, 2021;Syed, 2023;Weil, 2023). Ageing migrant women stand at the intersection of complex power relations throughout their life course due to the temporal and constructive nature of the social positions they occupy. ...
This article aims to demonstrate a concrete example of how to apply an intersectional life course perspective into the study of ageing migrant women. The empirical material is based on a qualitative in-depth interview study conducted with 20 Turkish-born women who have migrated to Sweden in their early to mid-adulthood years. Despite increasing urgings from gerontologists to include intersectionality in studies on migrants, research often neglects how age, gender, and migration status interact, failing to recognise the diverse experiences of racialised older migrants. The analysis shows that the intersection of age, gender and migrancy generates racialised and gendered experiences of later life which renders the women in different positions of power. The analysis also reveals the importance of agential capacity through the mobilisation of resources, negotiation, and resistance. By cross-fertilising two perspectives, the study suggests that intersectional life course could shed light on the experiences of ageing migrant women, thus, sensitising gerontological research to diversity and heterogeneity.
... We use the Intersectional Life Course Theory to explore how the intersections of social identities influence an individual's life trajectory over time. Individuals' experiences are not solely shaped by single dimensions of identity, but rather by the interplay of various identities and their evolution over the life course, with structural conditions shaping these experiences (Brotman et al. 2020). We combine the Intersectionality and Life Course Theory to describe how the construction, experience, and impact of intersectional inequalities can vary across age, cohort, life-course stage, and social-historical context (Kwon and Adams 2022). ...
This study explores how racialized migrant youth navigate Ontario’s child welfare, criminal justice, and immigration systems. Insights from youth, academics, practitioners, lawyers, policymakers, and social workers were gathered from a conference and contextualized using the Intersectional Life Course Theory and a critical phenomenological framework. Our analysis focuses on timing, locally and globally linked lives, social identities, and resilience, and emphasizes the interconnectedness of individual experiences within societal structures. We review systemic challenges and ethical dilemmas for young migrants, particularly concerns about fairness in potential inadmissibility or deportation consequences. We propose systemic support measures to foster resilience and disrupt adverse trajectories in order to mitigate discriminatory practices and provide targeted support for youth within these systems.
... Along these lines, it is important to recognize that most older adults in Canada from our target communities are first generation immigrants and so often being racialized and an immigrant intersect in specific ways for this population [21]. We acknowledge that not all immigrants are racialized minorities and not all racialized communities are immigrants, and these groups may have different experiences and needs [22]. Our interview guides collected these personal characteristics and included research questions related to participant sociodemographic characteristics and access to appropriate services and activities. ...
Background
Racialized and/or ethnocultural minority older adults in supportive living settings may not have access to appropriate services and activities. Most supportive living facilities are mainstream (not specific to one group); however, culturally specific facilities are purpose-built to accommodate older adults from a particular group. Our objective was to describe the perspectives of diverse participants about access to culturally appropriate care, accessible services, and social and recreation activities in culturally specific and mainstream (non-specific) supportive living facilities.
Methods
We conducted semi-structured interviews with 21 people (11 staff, 8 family members, 2 residents) from 7 supportive living homes (2 culturally specific and 5 mainstream) in Alberta, Canada. We used a rapid qualitative inquiry approach to structure the data collection and analysis.
Results
Staff and family members described challenges in accessing culturally appropriate care in mainstream facilities. Family members expressed guilt and shame when their relative moved to supportive living, and they specifically described long waitlists for beds in culturally specific homes. Once in the facility, language barriers contributed to quality of care issues (e.g., delayed assessments) and challenges accessing recreation and social activities in both mainstream and culturally specific homes. Mainstream facilities often did not have appropriate food options and had limited supports for religious practices. Residents who had better English language proficiency had an easier transition to supportive living.
Conclusions
Racialized and/or ethnoculturally diverse residents in mainstream supportive living facilities did not receive culturally appropriate care. Creating standalone facilities for every cultural group is not feasible; therefore, we must improve the care in mainstream facilities, including recruiting more diverse staff and integrating a wider range of recreation and religious services and food options.
... Promisingly, it builds on the small but growing gerontological scholarship on intersectionality-based theoretical and practice frameworks studying racialised and immigrant older adults (see e.g. Ferrer et al., 2017;Brotman et al., 2019;Syed, 2022). Thus, the findings of this article stress the increased need for a transnationally informed intersectional framework that harmonises ageing, sociocultural, faith, nation-state and global realities to address older immigrant women's needs. ...
Critical and feminist ageing scholarship has drawn attention to how dominant discourses of ageing negatively impact older women's identities and social lives. While research intersecting migration and ageing has broadly focused on older immigrants' settlement experiences, very little is known about the discursive influences over older immigrant women's sense of agency and social relations. To address this knowledge gap, this study explores the subjectivity-formations of older South Asian Muslim women engaged in transnational migration. Narrative and discourse analysis principles were used to conduct and analyse life story-based interviews with 15 South Asian Muslim older women who recently migrated to Toronto, Canada. Findings indicate that participant subjectivity-formations are shaped by: (a) discourses of ageing; (b) socio-cultural–religious discourses; and (c) discourses of transnational migration. In response, participants engaged in dynamic strategies including conforming, negotiating, creating alternative narratives and/or resisting these discourses to organise their lives. These findings reinforce the continued need to trace the governmentality of structural conditions over ageing migrant women's lives and their responsive strategies to manage these impacts.
... These themes include life-span development (lifelong processes of ageing and human evolution), agency (human lives constructed through choices and actions comprising opportunities and constraints created by history and social context), time and place (historical times and places that individuals experience shaping their lifecourse), timing (developmental antecedents and consequences of individuals' life transitions, incidents, and behavioural types across timing in their life), and linked lives (individuals' interdependent relationships and socio-historical influences). The lifecourse paradigm has been extensively applied in different disciplines such as health, criminology, culture, and family studies (Brotman et al., 2020;Elder, 1994;Giele & Elder, 1998;Hareven & Adams, 1982;Moncur, 2017). ...
Lifecourse transitions from adulthood into older age are particularly complex for transnationalmigrants, bringing additional challenges and opportunities. Adding to the growing literature on ageing and migration, this article illustrates the ways ICTs facilitate the transnational lifecourse transitions of Vietnamese migrant grandparents in Australia through lifecourse digital learning. Research findings highlight the crucial role that digital citizenship plays in supporting migrant grandparents’ adaptation to increasingly mobile lives through practices of digital kinning and digital homing. These practices include using technological tools to maintain social support networks, exchange transnational caregiving, tackle language, navigation, and social integration barriers, and consume culturally relevant media, all of which support migrant identities and belongings. Findings confirm the importance of ICTs in promoting lifecourse digital learning for older migrants who are often stereotyped for their poor learning capacities and ability to adapt to new living arrangements because of their older age.
... Black people's lives are thus 'shaped by their multiple and overlapping identities' (Crichlow et al, 2021: p. 191) that intersect in unique ways, making it critical to understand how their multiple identities 'compound and complicate levels of disenfranchisement' (Mullings et al, 2021: p. 6). Attending to intersectionality and interlocking forms of oppression, such as those linked to structured racialisation, enables an analysis that moves beyond a deficit-informed approach to account for the various forms of oppression that people face, while, at the same time, explicitly naming the resilience and resistance that are enacted by individuals and communities in their daily lives (Brotman et al, 2020). ...
Community accountability is a model through which to redress anti-Black racism in health care and to create community-based participatory research about the health of Black Canadians. This article provides a case example of a study undertaken by a Black community collective in Quebec made up of researchers, activists, service providers, business leaders and their allies who sought community accountability in making visible the impact of COVID-19 on local Black communities. The principles articulated within the Black emancipatory action research approach (Akom, 2011) are used to ground an analysis of our research-activist process in order to illuminate how knowledge gained through the collection of data can be used to help inform Black communities about the realities, needs and concerns of their members, to advocate for rights and entitlements, and to work towards community accountability in research that empowers Black communities, both in Quebec and elsewhere.
... Canada's changing demographics have prompted a drive for researchers to understand the needs of ethnically and religiously diverse aging immigrants [6][7][8]. Our study examines the experiences of aging Muslim Lebanese Canadians to understand what has shaped their social connectedness and engagement across the life course. ...
Social connectedness and engagement are particularly important among groups who are at risk of experiencing social isolation, such as immigrant older adults. The objective of our study was to understand the social relationships of aging Muslim Lebanese immigrants living in Canada by exploring their lives in their ethnic and wider communities. This study used a life course perspective and adopted a constructivist narrative inquiry to understand the diverse lived experiences of four older adults who immigrated to Canada during early adulthood. Participants engaged in a narrative interview and follow-up session in which they storied their lived experiences. Findings describe one core theme, cultivating social relationships through family, friends, and community interdependence, and three related sub-themes: (1) navigating and creating family interdependence and planting new roots; (2) family interdependence in later life: the important role of grandchildren; and (3) cultivating ethnic and local interdependence to support aging in place. The participants’ stories provided an understanding of how culture, religion, aging, family, and immigration experiences interrelated throughout their life course and shaped their social relationships during later life. This study sheds new insight on the importance of culturally tailored activities and awareness about the social needs of immigrant older adults.
... This intentionally political approach to research seeks to engage participants more actively in the research design, data analysis and dissemination, and targets policy makers and practitioners with the power to effect social change to improve the lives of affected communities. Our project was supported by local advisory committees that were active in the project's recruitment, analysis and interpretation of data, outreach, and knowledge dissemination (for example, see Brotman et al., 2020). Data collection spanned two years from 2014 to 2016 in the cities of Montreal, Quebec, and Vancouver, British Columbia; urban centers that are home to more racialized immigrants when compared to most Canadian cities. ...
This paper contributes to the growing body of work on precarious labor, immigration, and social gerontology by examining the racialization of precarious employment across the life course. In particular, the authors examine the impact of precarious employment and discrimination among racialized older immigrants in Canada. Racialized older immigrants are more likely to be disadvantaged by the effects of lifelong intersections of economic and social discrimination rooted in racialization, gender, ageism, and socio-economic status. Drawing from a narrative-photovoice project that focused on the life stories of older immigrants living in Quebec and British Columbia, this paper presents the in-depth stories and photographs of four participants to highlight how intersections of race, gender, age, immigration status, and ability shape and structure experiences of aging, labor market participation and caregiving relationships.
... The authors state that this model has the potential to provide deeper understanding about the complexity of the effect that different lines of oppressions can have on older migrants. Initial steps have been taken to examine how this model can be applied as a framework for analysis in research about ethnicity and old age (Brotman, Ferrer, & Koehn, 2019). ...
Im vorliegenden Beitrag werden in einem ersten Schritt mögliche Verschränkungen von institutionalisiertem Rassismus und Ableismus erläutert, um die Kontingenz sozialer Ungleichheitsverhältnisse mittels intersektionaltätstheoretischer Perspektive zu reflektieren. In einem weiteren Schritt werden Implikationen einer wechselseitigen Betrachtung der beiden Diskriminierungs- und Ausgrenzungsverhältnisse, sowohl für die deutschsprachige Intersektionalitätsforschung an der Schnittstelle Behinderung und Migration/Flucht als auch für die sozialpädagogische Praxis, herausgearbeitet. Um nicht bei der Problematisierung bestehender Ungleichheits- und Diskriminierungsverhältnisse stehen zu bleiben, werden abschließend theoretische Überlegungen zum Konvivialismus als potenzieller Ausweg aus der meritokratischen Leistungsgesellschaft erläutert.
... The authors state that this model has the potential to provide deeper understanding about the complexity of the effect that different lines of oppressions can have on older migrants. Initial steps have been taken to examine how this model can be applied as a framework for analysis in research about ethnicity and old age (Brotman, Ferrer, & Koehn, 2019). ...
The coronavirus pandemic is the most challenging health emergency in generations, as it has already impacted on the capacities of health infrastructures and is dramatically affecting the local and global economy. Since the global spread of the pandemic, the importance of social distancing as well as the hygiene measures for self-protection and protection of other persons has been enforced, to reduce the rapid spread of the coronavirus. However, these ever-more restrictive protection measures are often not feasible for many, especially marginalized and subaltern groups in the Global South, as state-funded social security systems are very limited there. Therefore, it is not surprising that these developments pose a huge socioeconomic threat as well as potential for social and political unrest, especially to those communities living in already politically fragile and precarious situations in countries such as Ethiopia. Developing Santos’s understanding of social work epistemologies of the South’ and based on a small-scale explorative qualitative study in cooperation with Addis Ababa University, this chapter highlights the impact of historical postcolonial inequalities as well as contemporary political conflicts on the agency of Ethiopian Social and Community Workers as well as their perspectives regarding the multiple crises they confront.
... The authors state that this model has the potential to provide deeper understanding about the complexity of the effect that different lines of oppressions can have on older migrants. Initial steps have been taken to examine how this model can be applied as a framework for analysis in research about ethnicity and old age (Brotman, Ferrer & Koehn, 2019). ...
Population aging and international migration are two of the most critical social trends shaping the world today. As a result, scholars across the globe have begun to investigate how to better incorporate ethnicity into gerontological research. The integration of insights from life-course theory, post-colonial, and feminist theories have resulted in valuable attempts to tackle issues related to ethnicity and old age. Inspired by these bodies of research, this paper explores how decolonial perspectives can strengthen social gerontological research at the intersection of ethnicity and old age.
This theoretical paper advances four key insights drawn from decolonial perspectives that expose some current blind spots in gerontological research at the intersection of aging and ethnicity. Through a process of awareness and resistance decolonial perspectives reveal that: 1) colonial thinking is deeply embedded in research; 2) critical reflection about who is considered the “knower” in research is warranted; 3) alternative ways to generate, analyze, and publish knowledge exist; and 4) the places and systems of knowledge production are not neutral. To address these issues empirically, decolonial frameworks call us to actions that include decolonizing the conceptual underpinnings of the research enterprise, scholars themselves, research-in-action (through “epistemic disobedience”), and current knowledge systems and structures that reflect and reinforce colonialism. Potential applications of these insights are explored, but acknowledged as an essential first step on a nascent path.
This paper concludes by arguing that decolonial perspectives offer a more genuine gaze by demanding nuanced reflections of contemporary realities aging persons embodying the intersection of aging and ethnicity, like racialized older migrants and ethnic minorities, while simultaneously revealing how historically-rooted power hierarchies that are often invisible constrain their aging experiences.
... To understand these experiences, it is important to position the voices of marginalized people at the centre of our inquiries. Their experiences of marginalization and resilience over the life course should be interpreted within the context of structural inequality [6]. ...
Participants in the Caregiving, Family, and Homecare forum identified complex and mutually reinforcing barriers to the health and social care needed by immigrant older adults. While it is true that many immigrants feel that care should be provided to older adults within the familial context this tends to place additional pressure on women in these families to deliver that care, since care work is gendered, underpaid and unrecognized. Moreover, health care providers must not assume that older immigrants have family members to provide that care, since many do not. Finally, many older immigrants do not qualify for home care because of immigration regulations, although there is variation across jurisdictions. Inequitable access impedes timely and appropriate care.
... Given the opportunity, older immigrants prefer to foreground their resilience in overcoming structural barriers, with some providing leadership in their communities. 93 ...
The goal of this literature review is to understand intersectional discrimination and its effects on older Canadians, with a specific focus on the diverse experiences of ageism across multiple intersections of marginality. The Government of Canada is especially interested in identifying interventions that can address the effects of such discrimination on older adults’ ability to access and maintain employment and income security, secure housing and age in place, and access health care and other social services.
Commissioned by Employment and Social Development Canada's (ESDC) Seniors and Pensions Policy Secretariat's (SPPS)
... Narrative forms of inquiry focus on both context and meaning by asserting the central importance of 'major life events and key meaningful moments, paying specific attention to both the ways in which these events are shaped by social context and how people understand and make meaning of them' (Hulko et al, 2020: 252; see also Ferrer et al, 2017). Data are typically gathered 'in conversation' between researcher and participant, engaging in multiple unstructured or semi-structured interviews, and typically include other forms of data collection, such as journaling or visual mapping (Brotman et al, 2019). As such, narrative inquiry foregrounds the concept of 'co-construction', in that both researcher and participants shape how stories are revealed and interpreted. ...
Based on findings from a Canadian-based study, this article examines the stories of young adult women carers. Young adult women caring for a parent or grandparent were interviewed using social network maps, participant-driven photography and care timelines. The findings reveal numerous impacts on the women’s lives, which we categorise according to three temporal periods: the past (how they came to be carers); the present (their daily realities of care); and the future (how they imagine what is ahead). We conclude with a discussion regarding the tensions between the women’s personal stories and the social forces that shape young women’s caring.
Many older adults live with some form of hearing loss and have difficulty understanding speech in the presence of background sound. Experiences resulting from such difficulties include increased listening effort and fatigue. Social interactions may become less appealing in the context of such experiences, and age-related hearing loss is associated with an increased risk of social isolation and associated negative psychosocial health outcomes. However, the precise relationship between age-related hearing loss and social isolation is not well described. Here, we review the literature and synthesize existing work from different domains to propose a framework with three conceptual anchor stages to describe the relation between hearing loss and social isolation: within-situation disengagement from listening, social withdrawal, and social isolation. We describe the distinct characteristics of each stage and suggest potential interventions to mitigate negative impacts of hearing loss on social lives and health. We close by outlining potential implications for researchers and clinicians.
In the post-COVID-19 era, digital empowerment has become significant, especially with reference to media messages and communication technologies being used to financially empower citizens. As past histories of media are leaving behind a legacy of analog and archaic forms of media content creation, new technologies are building the ‘media archaeology' of past traditions, heritages, epistemologies to generate meanings, and dialogue for new means of storytelling, thereby preserving heritage in ‘digital formats'. The study has some broader mission and objectives with more specific research questions: What are the key themes of digital literacy among community radio practitioners? Which theoretical frameworks can define digital literacy? What are the different tools of digital empowerment? Is there an emerging ‘empowering relationship' among women content creators and consumers?
Objectives:
Research on associations between early life adversity (ELA) and later life cognition has yielded mixed results and generally have not considered how broader societal systems of stratification potentially influence associations. The current study addresses this gap by exploring if racialized identity and childhood socioeconomic status (cSES) moderate associations between ELA exposure and later life cognition.
Methods:
Using data from the Health and Retirement Study (Waves 2010-2018), we used growth curve modeling to examine if the confluence of ELA, cSES, and racialized identity is associated with cognition.
Results:
Among White participants, greater exposure to ELA was associated with poorer baseline cognitive functioning, and higher cSES buffered against this association. Among Black participants, exposure to ELA was not associated with baseline cognitive functioning, regardless of cSES. We did not find evidence of any associations between main predictors nor their interactions with change in cognition over time.
Conclusions:
This study provides evidence that associations between ELA and later life cognition is contingent upon multiple social positions in the United States. These findings support the importance of integrating insights on intersecting social positions within life-course-oriented efforts to reduce racialized cognitive disparities.
The scholarship on immigrant integration has tended to focus on the early period of settlement and to position immigrants as responsible for adapting to the labour market and the values and practices of the mainstream society in the host country. Normative individualised perspectives have neglected the role of other actors, the ongoing nature of integration, and the need for support to sustain it over time. This chapter addresses often neglected organising processes involved in the maintenance of immigrants’ integration during later life when they need to interact with and navigate through organisational care systems and gain assistance to ensure continued connection with a range of communities in the host society. Focusing on an Australian case study, the chapter outlines how multicultural policy has shaped the organisation of immigrant integration since the 1970s, before showing how government policies, funding, and practices operate in ways that homogenise older immigrants and shape how migrant support organisations work to facilitate and sustain continued integration. By applying the life course perspective to analyse interviews with organisational representatives who manage and support activities for older immigrants living at home, we show that integration is a multifaceted, dynamic process involving immigrants, society, and the state, and not short-term, linear, or unidirectional.KeywordsLife courseOlder immigrantsAgeing
This paper experiments with the use of literary analysis for the interpretation of participants’ writing. The dataset comprises 56 ‘Reports’ in response to a 2019 Mass Observation Directive. Mass Observation is a British archive. Its aim is to record everyday life through correspondents’ responses to thrice-yearly Directives. The paper contributes to lyrical sociology with its development of ‘textural’ analysis. The 2019 Directive asked volunteers to submit reports on what was on their mantelpieces and also about their treasured objects. I found this writing highly allusive of two literary works: Tom Stoppard's play Arcadia, and the ‘Catalogue of Ships’ in Homer's ancient Greek epic poem, the Iliad. This led me not only to review the earlier reports but also to consider how literature can enrich the interpretation of participants’ writing. In conclusion, I argue that following up allusive ‘hunches’ can result in fruitful literary analysis, as a ‘textural’ approach to sociological method.
Engaging with visual methodology literature and the concept of ‘family display’, this article examines how visual methods can generate new ways of understanding the (in)visibility of queer family life. Engaging Chinese lesbians in image-making and photo-elicitation interviews, I illustrate how visual methods give access to different ways of making sense of ‘family’, including the ‘everyday’, the ‘imaginary’, and the ‘void’. By exploring the image-maker’s intentions, the presence or absence of the image-maker, and diverse ways of displaying family, I show how visual methods can facilitate the display of family ties, tensions, and ideals. Adopted in an open format that allows flexibility and creativity, visual methods generate space for participants to communicate the unrealisable and unseeable and for researchers to examine how dominant heteronormative representations and discourses around the ‘family’ restrict possibilities of displaying family. I highlight the importance of maintaining openness and sensitivity to cultural peculiarities when adopting visual methods.
Teachers can be important transformation agents in post-conflict societies. In this studydin Tolima, Colombiad39 teachers participated as co-researchers to investigate the effects of armed conflict on their school's capacity to build peace. They used different biographical tools to recount their experiences with the armed conflict. The article discusses how using this methodological approach contributes to peacebuilding through two processes: the production of knowledge and the generation of trans- formations in teachers. The results suggest that this approach can contribute to sustainable peace- building in post-conflict contexts by designing more contextualised school-based peacebuilding projects and better engaging teachers in this process.
Résumé
Malgré l’attention renouvelée de plusieurs médias sur la question des risques liés à la COVID-19 au sein de diverses communautés marginalisées au Québec, nous entendons encore très peu parler des personnes âgées immigrantes et de leurs proches. Dans cette note sur les politiques et pratiques, nous aborderons l’expérience du contexte pandémique chez les personnes âgées immigrantes montréalaises et leurs réseaux. Nous présenterons d’abord quelques données sociodémographiques sur les immigrants âgés montréalais. Nous exposerons ensuite nos constats sur les impacts de la COVID-19 sur les personnes âgées immigrantes, en particulier en ce qui concerne l’accès aux soins de la santé et aux services sociaux, la proche-aidance, l’emploi et le logement, à partir de nos travaux et de la littérature en gérontologie sociale. Nous terminerons en proposant quelques recommandations qui permettraient d’améliorer l’inclusion sociale des personnes âgées immigrantes et de leurs proches, autant en matière de politiques publiques que de pratiques sur le terrain.
The concept awareness, proposed years ago to study contexts of interaction and processes of identity between nursing care personnel and dying patients, may form a methodological and theoretical basis to study ageism. Moreover, awareness is proposed here to be revisited as a core category referring to basic social processes and discursive axes underling various phenomena such as racism, sexism, or ageism. My aim in this article is a retrospective research storytelling circa the case of aging immigrants as people who have experienced multiple minority discrimination. A discourse and grounded theory analysis were used to reanalyze a selection of qualitative material gathered over the course of two sets of research projects on xenophobia (2006–2012) and multiple discrimination (2013–2019). Becoming aware of ageism in the case of aging immigrants and the researcher himself serves as an exercise of methodological, self-reflexive, qualitative, and embodied enquiry for a better understanding of sociological ageism.
Background: Older people are at risk of confronting emotional challenges, including loneliness, depression, anxiety and low-levels of wellbeing, as a result of varied ageing-related changes. These emotional challenges may further give rise to socio-health issues and even increased mortality, presenting a pressing public health issue in the context of population ageing. By employing a biographical lens, we aim to introduce storytelling as a methodological tool to more holistically explore the construction of their emotional challenges within the context of their life histories.
Methods: Building upon theoretical understandings about the social construction of the life course, we draw on a qualitative study about older people’s loneliness to showcase the methodological value and feasibility of implementing biographical storytelling, to better understand the nuanced and sometimes painful emotional experiences facing people alongside their ageing.
Results: Findings from the qualitative study we showcase highlight that not only older people’s emotional pains but also their (in)ability to deal with such are deeply rooted in their earlier lives. The biographical nature of these findings further illustrates the methodological merit of biographical storytelling, integrating meaningful narratives from across different life stages to more holistically understand and support people’s emotional challenges and wellbeing in old age.
Conclusion: We argue that biographical storytelling is a particularly useful research methodology to explore the experiences and needs of older people, who have often accumulated rich life stories and who may be at increased risk of facing changes and challenges following bodily deterioration and other ageing-related losses. This methodological development can empower older people to reconstruct their ageing lives in the context of their biography as an ongoing construction. The development also lies in an insightful analytical lens to explore how older people’s earlier life experiences may be carried forward and confronted to shape their emotional stability in the present and future stages of their ageing lives.
This chapter tells the story of Josie, a gender-non-conforming, queer woman living with chronic illness and disability. A feminist narrative methodology elicits Josie’s description of her experiences of school, health care and the ways in which she negotiates sexual and gender identity and expression in the context of the many challenges she experiences in living with pain and disability. We document critical moments and turning points in her lived experience of disability, sexuality and gender, and examine how intersecting identities both shape and are shaped by context and experiences of the body as both complex and fluid. Josie’s rich account embodies multiple marginalized and intersecting social locations, and offers important insights on how to engage in a social work practice informed by a feminist narrative approach, particularly the intersecting social locations of disability and queer identities. An intersectional lifeline and feminist narrative interviewing offer tools for the development of critical, transformative research and practice in social work.
http://ville.montreal.qc.ca/pls/portal/docs/PAGE/CONSEIL_INTERC_FR/MEDIA/DOCUMENTS/PAIR-MEP-FR-21-06-28.PDF?fbclid=IwAR3JxxATa8fQjKNahznVjovgzpH9t-74H0oYdOau-KHy2f95z10GsDfZCC8
Background and Objectives
Spatial practices and changing urban environments affecting identity, experiences, and everyday life were examined among a diverse sample of older adults as they negotiated and navigated an age-friendly city.
Research Design and Methods
Ethnographic interviews, observations, and visual methods were used to understand spatial practices and lived experiences of four older adults, who chronicled their lives using disposable cameras.
Results
Informant identities emerged in their everyday practices, reflecting varied positionalities that fundamentally shaped their notions of “age-friendly.” Informants sought to sustain or improve their lives while attempting to negotiate socio-environmental forms and forces that often threatened their identity and increased their precarity.
Discussion and Implications
Contrast exists between “invariant” macro/meso issues all older adults face as they age and “multivariant” ways in which age is accomplished based on place, biography, and intersectionality. Age-friendly environments may simultaneously maintain the status quo and exacerbate inequalities. Gerontology must take seriously how stratified life chances can undermine seemingly universal potential benefits of age-friendly environments.
Older Punjabi Sikh women are central to their families and communities, but their own needs are often overlooked. Probing the intersections of gender, ethnicity and age and interlocking experiences of sexism, racism and ageism within and beyond their own communities can deepen our understanding of why this happens and what we can do about it. Vertical hierarchies of women that develop in response to male domination, the gendered nature of women’s work and leisure activities, migration patterns that result in generational role reversals, unmet childcare needs, and sponsorship policies that engender dependency and promote isolation of older adults all play a role. These disparate threads are integrated through application of the intersectional life course lens, which recognises the importance of structural influences and oppressions on life course transitions over time and space.
Today, racialized older women’s international migration is increasingly accelerated, cyclical and transnational, illustrating the transcendence of lives across time and space. At the same time, immigration regimes regulate and restrict these seemingly unfettered mobilities using neoliberal, gendered and ageist policies that favor (younger) skilled immigration. This article addresses the question of how social work can use intersectionality perspectives to theorize racialized older immigrant women’s lives which are stretched across multiple time(s) and space(s) yet confined within highly regulated multi-tiered immigration systems.
Findings
This article outlines a theoretical framework grounded specifically within intersectional feminist, post-structural, and transnational aging perspectives. The framework embraces the temporality, spatiality, and transnationality of gendered, aging and migrant lives and reconsiders their agency as a performed subjectivity bound by multiple forces of institutionalized regimes.
Applications
This theoretical framework moves social work inquiry to a richer understanding of the migratory realities of diverse aging lives that are simultaneously in-motion and regulated within structural constraints.
This report presents the results of a series of Stakeholder Outreach Forums held over 2018-19 in four regions across Canada – Greater Montréal, Québec City, Calgary, and Greater Vancouver. The outreach forums provided an opportunity for discussion of issues faced by aging immigrants in Canada.
The forums built upon a SSHRC Insight Development Grant titled Intersecting Identities and Interlocking Oppressions, led by Drs. Shari Brotman, Sharon Koehn, and Ilyan Ferrer. This research resulted in the development of a narrative photovoice exhibit entitled The Lived Experiences of Aging Immigrants.
Our outreach forums brought together stakeholders from multiple sectors to share information and strategize about the actions necessary to improve recognition and support for aging immigrants. Strategic theme areas were chosen for the forums in consultation with community partners, based on findings from the research project. The Lived Experiences of Aging Immigrants photo exhibit and short presentations by key community leaders served as a catalyst for discussions at the forums. The discussions at the forums drew on participants’ decades of knowledge and action around various forms of exclusion and precarity experienced by older immigrants. This report summarizes discussions at the forums on four key theme areas: (1) caregiving; (2) social inclusion; (3) housing; and (4) transportation.
The purpose of this report is to provide insight into common problems faced by older immigrants in urban areas in Canada and to inform community action and policymaking at municipal and provincial levels of governance.
This article, reporting on a Canadian-based research project, tells the stories of three first- and second-generation, racialized, young women from immigrant families in order to illuminate their unique realities of intergenerational care and to better understand the role of gender, racialization, and migration in shaping their lived experiences of care. Using a feminist-informed adaption to the intersectional life-course approach, we explore the life-course challenges experienced by these women and their perspectives on agency, resilience, and resistance in light of personal, relational, and structural barriers faced by both themselves and their parents and grandparents for whom they provide care. Findings related to meanings attributed to care and family, developmental and relational disruptions and their impact, hybridized subjectivity, and responses to discrimination and social isolation are explored through the telling of women’s caring stories across time. The article concludes with recommendations for social work intervention and service provision in order to better recognize and support racialized young first- and second-generation adult women carers across sectors.
KEY WORDS: OLDER IMMIGRANT WOMEN; ABUSE AND NEGLECT; SRI LANKAN TAMIL; POST MIGRATION CONTEXT; URBAN/SUBURBAN CONTEXT; CANADA Elder abuse and neglect occur in every community and society. While considerable research is emerging on elder abuse, limited health science research exists to-date on older women experiencing abuse and neglect in the post-migration context in Canada. Building on our community partners' interest in further understanding the topic of elder abuse and our previous work on violence against women throughout the migration process, this qualitative study explored older immigrant women's experiences of and responses to abuse and neglect in one community. Data generation involved individual interviews and three focus groups with a group of older women (N=43) from the Sri Lankan Tamil community in Toronto. Findings show that older women experienced various forms of neglect and abuse and that the primary abusers were their husbands, children and children-in-law. Their community and Canadian society at large were also implicated. Women's responses to abuse were shaped by many factors at micro, meso, and macro-societal levels. In responding to abuse, older immigrant women showed remarkable resilience. Strategies are offered to better support older women's attempts to cope with abuse and to promote their resiliencies.
This article contributes to the growing debate on intersectionality by proposing a theoretical framing which attends to different levels of analysis in terms of what is being referred to (social categories or concrete social relations); societal arenas of investigation; and historicity (processes and outcomes). It discusses questions of social ontology, categories, groupings and more concrete social relations relating to boundaries and hierarchies in social life. The article presents a particular analytical sensitivity which attends to the dialogical nature of social relations, the centrality of power and social hierarchy, and the importance of locating these within spatial and temporal contexts.
In comparison to research practices, intersectionality is an underdeveloped concept within policy discourse and application. Because of the complexity and relative newness of this approach, policy analysis grounded within an intersectionality framework remains largely undertheorized, and methods for integrating intersectionality into policy processes are in the nascent stages. This article (1) defines intersectionality and demonstrates the need for this approach in public policy, (2) outlines challenges in applying intersectionality to policy making, and (3) describes and evaluates three innovative approaches to applying intersectionality to policy development and analysis.
Sociologists, anthropologists, and others are paying increasing attention to the collection and analysis of personal narratives. This is true of qualitative health research, where narratives of suffering and illness have been granted special status. The article endorses a narrative approach but offers a criticism of research in which narratives are regarded as offering the analyst privileged access to personal experience. It is suggested that an appeal to narratives too often includes inappropriate assumptions concerning human actors and social action. The argument is developed primarily through a reading of several major authors in the field.
This paper is an ethnographic exploration of a seldom-discussed ‘micro’ dimension of transnational studies, the practices of long-distance family relations and aged care. The importance of time as a key variable in transnational research is demonstrated through comparisons of the care exchanges of three cohorts of Italian migrants in Australia and their kin in Italy. A focus on ‘transnationalism from below’, the more quotidian and domestic features of transmigrant experience, highlights the importance of considering the role of homeland kin and communities in discussions of migration. The analysis of transnational care-giving practices illustrates that migrancy is sometimes triggered by the need to give or receive care rather than the more commonly assumed ‘rational’ economic motivations. Transnational lives are thus shaped by the ‘economies of kinship’, which develop across changing state (‘macro’), community (‘meso’) and family migration (‘micro’) histories, including, in particular, culturally constructed notions of ‘ideal’ family relations and obligations, as well as notions of ‘successful’ migration and ‘licence to leave’.
This paper is an ethnographic exploration of a seldom-discussed 'micro' dimension of transnational studies, the practices of long-distance family relations and aged care. The importance of time as a key variable in transnational research is demonstrated through comparisons of the care exchanges of three cohorts of Italian migrants in Australia and their kin in Italy. A focus on 'transnationalism from below', the more quotidian and domestic features of transmigrant experience, highlights the importance of considering the role of homeland kin and communities in discussions of migration. The analysis of transnational care-giving practices illustrates that migrancy is sometimes triggered by the need to give or receive care rather than the more commonly assumed 'rational' economic motivations. Transnational lives are thus shaped by the 'economies of kinship', which develop across changing state ('macro'), community ('meso') and family migration ('micro') histories, including, in particular, culturally constructed notions of 'ideal' family relations and obligations, as well as notions of 'successful' migration and 'licence to leave'.
Reuniting immigrant families has been considered an important goal in Canadian policy (Citizen and Immigration Canada (CIC), 2006). When an elderly relative is sponsored under the Family Class immigration category, the sponsor makes an unconditional undertaking of support for a period of ten years to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. This is a longer period than for any other Family Class group. In addition to their legal status as dependents, sponsored seniors–the majority from India and China–are left financially and socially vulnerable by a constellation of cultural, situational and structural factors. Based on case studies of the South Asian and Chinese immigrant populations by authors, Koehn and Hwang, and the legal expertise of author Spencer, we conclude that Canada’s laws and policies have an important effect on intergenerational tension, the senior’s status, social isolation, as well as the risk of abuse and neglect or domestic and workplace exploitation. These factors can influence access to essential services such as housing and health care services. While further evidence is needed, findings from preliminary studies indicate the need for policy-level revisions as well as other approaches to reducing the vulnerability of this significant subpopulation of ethnic minority seniors.
This paper uses an intersectionality theoretical lens to interrogate selected findings of a scoping review of published and grey literature on the health and health care access of ethnocultural minority older adults. Our focus was on Canada and countries with similar immigrant populations and health care systems. Approximately 3300 source documents were reviewed covering the period 1980-2010: 816 met the eligibility criteria; 183 were Canadian. Summarized findings were presented to groups of older adults and care providers for critical review and discussion. Here we discuss the extent to which the literature accounts for the complexity of categories such as culture and ethnicity, recognizes the compounding effects of multiple intersections of inequity that include social determinants of health as well as the specificities of immigration, and places the experience of those inequities within the context of systemic oppression. We found that Canada’s two largest immigrant groups— Chinese and South Asians—had the highest representation in Canadian literature but, even for these groups, many topics remain unexplored and the heterogeneity within them is inadequately captured. Some qualitative literature, particularly in the health promotion and cultural competency domains, essentializes culture at the expense of other determinants and barriers, whereas the quantitative literature suffers from oversimplification of variables and their effects often due to the absence of proportionally representative data that captures the complexity of experience in minority groups.
This study determined the national prevalence and profile of Asian Americans with Activities of Daily Living (ADL) limitations and identified factors associated with institutionalization. Data were obtained from 2006 American Community Survey, which replaced the long-form of the US Census. The data are nationally representative of both institutionalized and community-dwelling older adults. Respondents were Vietnamese (n = 203), Korean (n = 131), Japanese (n = 193), Filipino (n = 309), Asian Indian (n = 169), Chinese (n = 404), Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (n = 54), and non-Hispanic whites (n = 55,040) aged 55 and over who all had ADL limitations. The prevalence of institutionalized among those with ADL limitations varies substantially from 4.7% of Asian Indians to 18.8% of Korean Americans with ADL limitations. Every AAPI group had a lower prevalence of institutionalization than disabled Non-Hispanic whites older adults (23.8%) (p < 0.001). After adjustment for socio-demographic characteristics, Asian Indians, Vietnamese, Japanese, Filipino, and Chinese had significantly lower odds of institutionalization than non-Hispanic whites (OR = 0.29, 0.31, 0.58, 0.51, 0.70, respectively). When the sample was restricted to AAPIs, the odds of institutionalization were higher among those who were older, unmarried, cognitively impaired and those who spoke English at home. This variation suggests that aggregating data across the AAPI groups obscures meaningful differences among these subpopulations and substantial inter-group differences may have important implications in the long-term care setting.
For some time psychologists have been employing life history methods in their work. Perhaps the key publication in this regard is Erik Erikson 's (1975)book Life History and the Historical Moment. In fact, life history methods were pioneered by anthropologists and taken up with considerable enthusiasm by sociologists. A central location for the pioneering of life history methods by sociologists was the Chicago School in the 1930s.A range of innovative life history studies were generated here as part of the wide-ranging studies of the urban environment undertaken by the sociology school. In this article, we look at some of the possibilities of life history work, but are particularly concerned with analyzing the dilemmas that led to a decline in life history methods. The last section examines the rehabilitation of life history methods and puts forward a number of arguments as to why life history methods are particularly suitable for what Harvey (1989) called the "condition of post-modernity."
The ‘Barriers to Access to Care for Ethnic Minority Seniors’ (BACEMS) study in Vancouver, British Columbia, found that immigrant families torn between changing values and the economic realities that accompany immigration cannot always provide optimal care for their elders. Ethnic minority seniors further identified language barriers, immigration status, and limited awareness of the roles of the health authority and of specific service providers as barriers to health care. The configuration and delivery of health services, and health-care providers' limited knowledge of the seniors' needs and confounded these problems. To explore the barriers to access, the BACEMS study relied primarily on focus group data collected from ethnic minority seniors and their families and from health and multicultural service providers. The applicability of the recently developed model of ‘candidacy’, which emphasises the dynamic, multi-dimensional and contingent character of health-care access to ethnic minority seniors, was assessed. The candidacy framework increased sensitivity to ethnic minority seniors' issues and enabled organisation of the data into manageable conceptual units, which facilitated translation into recommendations for action, and revealed gaps that pose questions for future research. It has the potential to make Canadian research on the topic more co-ordinated. Also available at http://pubmedcentralcanada.ca/articlerender.cgi?accid=PMC3693980 (open access)
Transitions and the life course: Challenging the constructions of 'growing old' explores and challenges dominant interpretations of transitions as they relate to ageing and the life course. It takes a unique perspective that draws together ideas about late life as expressed in social policy and socio-cultural constructs of age with lived experience. The book is aimed at academics and students interested in social gerontology, policy studies in health and social care, and older people's accounts of experience.
This paper illustrates the concept of reciprocity in the context of immigrant families. It recommends that the definition of reciprocity be extended in order to take account of the complexity and diversity of care that is experienced in immigrant communities. The authors examine reciprocal exchanges beyond the immediate family, render visible the simultaneous location of older people as care recipients and providers, and account for care arrangements inclusive of generations, borders, community, and time. The findings presented in this paper emerged from a critical ethnographic study on the aging and care experiences of older Filipinos in Canada. Extended observations and in-depth semi-structured interviews with 18 older people, 6 adult children, and 13 community stakeholders identified the social policies, services, and structural barriers that impinged on everyday lives and the ways in which immigrant families respond to these barriers through reciprocal care arrangements. Findings highlight the unique configurations of care among the Filipino community whereby older people engage in care exchange as active participants across intergenerational, transnational and fictive kin networks. The results of the study emphasize the need for social workers to recognize and include reciprocal exchanges between intergenerational and transnational families, and fictive kin, in assessments and intervention plans.
This article proposes the development of an intersectional life course perspective that is capable of exploring the links between structural inequalities and the lived experience of aging among racialized older people. Merging key concepts from intersectionality and life course perspectives, the authors suggest an analytic approach to better account for the connections between individual narratives and systems of domination that impinge upon the everyday lives of racialized older people. Our proposed intersectional life course perspective includes four dimensions: 1) identifying key events and their timing, 2) examining locally and globally linked lives, 3) exploring categories of difference and how they shape identities, 4) and assessing how processes of differentiation, and systems of domination shape the lives, agency and resistance among older people. Although applicable to various forms of marginalization, we examine the interplay of racialization, immigration, labour and care in later life to highlight relationships between systems, events, trajectories, and linked lives. The illustrative case example used in this paper emerged from a larger critical ethnographic study of aging in the Filipino community in Montreal, Canada. We suggest that an intersectional life course perspective has the potential to facilitate a deeper understanding of the nexus of structural, personal and relational processes that are experienced by diverse groups of older people across the life course and into late life.
This article critiques digital photovoice, a method deployed by social activists, developmentalists, and anthropological researchers. I argue that the uncritical use of photovoice methods (1) has allowed a reinvigoration of a positivist orientation toward image authenticity and (2) inadvertently supports hegemonic regimes of value. To revitalize photovoice as a method, I argue that practitioners must view their project as an aesthetic one, in which image-makers are considered auteurs producing realities. I provide an example from my fieldwork in Adavisandra village near Bangalore, using one of my students’ photographs to consider how representations of her life change when we take her aesthetic-auterial sensibility seriously.
As the Canadian population becomes more racially diverse, so does its elderly population. This article focuses on elderly Filipinos, whose country of origin has become the largest source of immigrants to Canada since 2006. It draws from a university-community partnership and a mixed method research of surveying 250 and interviewing 20 elderly Filipinos in Toronto to document their economic condition. With seven out of ten living in poverty, our research reveals that economic insecurity is a fact of life for most elderly Filipinos in Canada. We elaborate on their impoverished living situation by delineating three major themes from our literature review (understanding poverty, factors contributing to poverty, and outcomes of poverty) and by foregrounding particular experiences of elderly Filipinos that illustrate and extend these themes. Taking intersectionality as our analytical paradigm, we consider the poverty of elderly Filipinos as shedding light on the interlocking ways in which later life circumstances are intricately shaped and impacted by class, race, gender, and immigration. Their economic insecurity is also intimately connected to the deskilling and deprofessionalization of Filipinos in Canada, a major structural condition that has produced and reinforced the ongoing marginalization of this racialized minority community.
Resume: Comme la population canadienne affiche de plus en plus une diversite raciale, il en va ainsi de ses aines. Cet article met l’accent sur les personnes âgees de race philippine, dont le pays d’origine represente la plus grande source d’immigrants au Canada depuis 2006. Afin de documenter leur condition economique, l’etude adopte une recherche partenariale universite-communaute ainsi qu’une approche mixte de sondages sur 250 aines philippins habitant a Toronto, et d’interviews sur 20 d’entre eux. Avec sept candidats sur dix vivant sous le seuil de la pauvrete, notre recherche revele que l’insecurite economique est une realite quotidienne pour la plupart des aines philippins au Canada. Nous nous penchons sur leur situation precaire en delimitant trois themes majeurs propre a notre analyse documentaire (la comprehension de la pauvrete, les facteurs qui contribuent a la pauvrete, et les effets de la pauvrete) et en mettant de l’avant les particulieres experiences des aines philippins qui illustrent les themes en question. En utilisant la notion d’intersectionnalite comme point de vue analytique, nous considerons que la pauvrete des aines philippins met la lumiere sur les facons dont les circonstances de la vie a un âge avance sont intrinsequement moulees et influencees par la classe sociale, la race, le sexe et l’immigration. En outre, leur insecurite economique est intimement liee a la dequalification et a la deprofessionnalisation des Philippins au Canada, des composantes majeures qui ont entraine, puis renforce la marginalisation continue de cette communaute minoritaire racialisee.
Relating closely to globalisation trends, the context for the chapter by Sandra Torres is the interconnection between international migration flows and the ways in which such migration is changing the demographics of ageing populations across the world and societies' ethnic composition. In examining contrasting approaches to exploring exclusion issues by social gerontologists and researchers who focus on international migration and ethnic relations, the chapter argues that the diversity of older migrants poses a challenge to social gerontology's theoretical, policy- and practice-oriented assumptions regarding who migrants are and what they need. While the 'migratory life-course' is associated with specific exclusionary risks, the mechanisms of social exclusion work differently according to when, why and where older migrants to western industrialised nations have come from. An ethnicity and race-aware take on social exclusion is shown to challenge taken-for-granted assumptions that well-designed policies and practices can reduce exclusion in later life.
Community Practice and Urban Youth is for graduate level students in fields that offer youth studies and community practice courses. Practitioners in these fields, too, will find the book particularly useful in furthering the integration of social justice as a conceptual and philosophical foundation. The use of food, environmental justice, and immigrant-rights and the book’s focus on service-learning and civic engagement involving these three topics offers an innovative approach for courses.
The globalisation of international migration has increased the ethnic diversity of most ageing populations across the Western world. This has implications for gerontological research, policy and practice, and puts our understandings of ethnicity to the test. This paper presents the different perspectives that inform ethnicity scholarship (the essentialist/primordial perspective, the structuralist/circumstantialist perspective and social constructionism) and suggests that the way in which we regard ethnicity has implications for how gerontological research is designed, how policies for old age are formulated and how gerontological practice is shaped. Through a review of contemporary gerontological research on ethnicity published in some of gerontology's main journals, the paper discusses some of the trends observed and concludes that most research seems to be informed by essentialism and structuralism. This suggests that the gerontological imagination on ethnicity has yet to be informed by the latest developments in ethnicity scholarship. The paper therefore urges gerontologists to broaden their understanding of ethnicity and suggests that much could be gained if we were to let the social constructionist perspective on ethnicity and the notion of intersectionality be sources of inspiration for the gerontological imagination on ethnicity.
Research on minority ethnic ageing remains a neglected area within mainstream race and ethnicity studies as well as that of social gerontology. This paper examines the background and reasons for this, arguing that a focus on minority ethnic issues provides a reminder of the complexity of the lifecourse, and of the diversity of ageing as a cultural, economic and social construction. The discussion reviews definitions of ethnicity and their relevance to work in social gerontology. The paper provides an account of early studies of minority ethnic ageing, identifying the strengths and limitations of this research. Later work is then considered, notably that focusing on issues connected with the rise of transnational communities and the changing character of neighbourhoods in urban environments. The paper argues that developing research on minority ethnic ageing has become especially important for understanding the impact of globalisation on re-defining communities, relationships and identities, within and beyond nation states. Globalisation, it is suggested, can be seen as a product of the movement of ethnic groups; equally, ethnic groups are themselves transformed by the possibilities created by global change. The paper concludes with a number of suggestions for embedding work on ethnicity within research in social gerontology.
Drawing on 55 interviews with older Taiwanese immigrants who relocated to the United States at an earlier life stage, the author argues that changing contextual features involved in the processes of international migration encourage and even demand aging immigrants to reconstruct cultural logics of aging and geriatric care. He develops the concept of reconfigured reciprocity to demonstrate how aging migrant populations transform cultural logics of intergenerational responsibility, obligation, and entitlement to reconcile the tension between ethnic tradition and modernity. First, he reveals how many of the respondents' lack of caregiving for their own parents undermines their sense of entitlement to receive care from younger generations. Furthermore, he highlights how the structural squeeze among work, family, and caregiving with which the younger generation struggles further discourages the respondents from relying on their children. Finally, the author underscores how aging immigrants evoke the concept of Americanization to reconstruct expectations of how they should be taken care of in their twilight years.
In an age where digital images are omnipresent, the use of participant photography in qualitative research has become accessible and commonplace. Yet, scant attention is paid to the social justice impact of photovoice amongst studies that have used this innovative method as a way to promote social justice. There is a need to review this method to understand its contributions and possibilities. This literature review of photovoice research studies (i) explores whether authors implicitly or explicitly related the methodologies to their aims of promoting social justice (methodology–method fit) and (ii) outlines the social justice research impact of photovoice findings using the framework of social justice awareness, amelioration and transformation. PubMed, Scopus, PsycINFO and Web of Science databases were searched from the years 2008–13 using the following keywords: photovoice; photonovella; photovoice and social justice; and photovoice and participatory action research. Of the 30 research studies reviewed, only thirteen identified an underlying methodology guiding the photovoice method. The social justice impacts emphasized were more related to social justice awareness (n = 30) than amelioration (n = 11) or transformation (n = 3). Future researchers using photovoice as a way to promote social justice are encouraged to assess and plan for the social justice impact desired.
This article discusses the position of older women in gender theory and in social gerontology. It shows how older women are made invisible in gender theory through the selection of arenas and themes, by model monopoly and by a lack of problematization of age. In the social gerontological field, older women have frequently been objects of research. However, double jeopardy assumptions have resulted in a perspective that foregrounds misery. Results from focus group interviews with women aged 75 and over, shed light on ageing as a process of development and on twofold bodily meanings, such as on-stage-body and off-stage-body. Thus, based on an approach of age and gender as intertwining systems, the article argues for a more complex understanding of the intersection of age and gender.
This article outlines the methodological process of a transdisciplinary team of indigenous and
nonindigenous individuals, who came together in early 2009 to develop a digital narrative method
to engage a remote community in northern Labrador in a research project examining the linkages
between climate change and physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health and well-being.
Desiring to find a method that was locally appropriate and resonant with the narrative wisdom
of the community, yet cognizant of the limitations of interview-based narrative research, our
team sought to discover an indigenous method that united the digital media with storytelling.
Using a case study that illustrates the usage of digital storytelling within an indigenous community,
this article will share how digital storytelling can stand as a community-driven methodological strategy that addresses, and moves beyond, the limitations of narrative research and the issues of colonization of research and the Western analytic project. In so doing, this emerging method can preserve and promote indigenous oral wisdom, while engaging community members, developing capacities, and celebrating myriad stories, lived experiences, and lifeworlds.
Efforts to understand pathways to a diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias (ADRD) are important in light of the benefits of early diagnosis to both patients and families, but very little is known about the ways in which persons with dementia and their family caregivers experience this pathway from the point of initial symptom recognition by family or friends to formal diagnosis seeking, particularly for immigrant older adults. Our team employed qualitative methods and a critical constructionist and intersectional framework to understand this experience from the perspectives of ten Chinese-Canadian dyads of persons with dementia and their caregivers. Situating the decisions made by these dyads relative to their intersecting identities and the power structures that inhibit them steered us away from essentializing attributions of their experiences to their 'culture' or ethnicity. Early signs of dementia were recognized as such in hindsight. There was no evidence of a strong link between culture and symptom appraisal. Knowledge about dementia, which may be influenced by culture, age, income, knowledge of English, and other determinants of health, played a role in symptom appraisal and help seeking. The role of family caregivers in care-seeking was more highly influenced by structural factors than by traditional Chinese cultural norms about family responsibilities and filial piety. Once caregivers realized that the symptoms and behaviors were 'problematic,' they quickly sought out additional information, usually from a family physician. At 1.5 years, the time between symptom onset and diagnosis is comparable to or shorter than that reported in research with other cultural groups. Gender-based power imbalance between female family caregivers and male Chinese-Canadian physicians appear to have contributed to delayed investigations and diagnosis. Sensitivity to such imbalances is important when working with older adults and those from more hierarchical cultures. Essentialized portraits of traditional family structures and cultural beliefs may not accurately reflect the variety of lived experiences of the dementia care-seeking by older Chinese immigrants in Canada.
This qualitative study explores the international migration patterns and the family lives of older adults. Informants (N = 54) reported that they came to the United States to help out their grown children with housekeeping, child care, and domestic economizing. They described how they strategically navigated U.S. immigration laws choosing to visit, immigrate, or naturalize in order to balance their ties to the United States and their homeland. Their transnational loyalties sometimes led to lives that did not strictly match their visa categories. There were “permanent” temporary visitors, U.S. permanent residents who maintained a “permanent” home elsewhere, and U.S. citizens who had naturalized in order to spend more time abroad. Implications of the findings for immigration policy and family practice are discussed.
In contrast to recent treatment of other social identities, geographers’ work on age still focuses disproportionately on the social-chronological margins – the very young and (to a far lesser extent) the very old – and rarely connects them directly. We outline the benefits of creating relational geographies of age, in order to build out from the recent explosion of children's geographies, and discuss three helpful concepts: intergenerationality, intersectionality and lifecourse. We suggest that participation provides one epistemological vehicle for getting beyond geographies which are mainly adults’.
Over the past decade, policymakers and practitioners in the field of aging have been increasingly challenged to develop appropriate health and social services for elders from diverse ethnic communities. This has largely resulted from concerns regarding the significant barriers to care faced by disenfranchised elders. However, advances in the articulation of multicultural practice and policy dealing with ethnic communities have focused almost exclusively on developing competency skills based on individual communication and understanding between formal service providers and clients rather than on exposing and altering institutional structures and power relations marked by racism. Indeed, antiracist agendas are rarely articulated in gerontological settings. This article reports on some of the central findings of a qualitative institutional ethnographic study on health care access among ethnic elderly women. It addresses the question of how multicultural programs and policies operate in elder care services and how they are experienced by ethnic elderly female clients and their service providers.
Key debates in social science and health research have centered on how to increase the inclusiveness of such research and hence its relevance for understanding the intersections of race, class, gender, and aging. This article uses gerontology as a case in point, examining the challenges of inclusivity and interlocking oppressions/intersectionality for better apprehending how broad structural factors shape and determine the experience of aging and growing old. The authors discuss alternative hypotheses being used to explore inequalities in the aging experience and the limitations of current concepts and methods. Promising new developments in sociology, epidemiology, and other fields are described in terms of their relevance for better understanding the dynamic interplay of race, class, gender, and aging.
Photovoice is a participatory health promotion strategy in which people use cameras to document their health and work realities. As participants engage in a group process of critical reflection, they may advocate for change in their communities by using the power of their images and stories to communicate with policy makers. In public health initiatives from China to California, community people have used photovoice to carry out participatory needs assessment, conduct participatory evaluation, and reach policy makers to improve community health. This article begins to address ethical issues raised by the use of photovoice: the potential for invasion of privacy and how that may be prevented; issues in recruitment, representation, participation, and advocacy; and specific methodological techniques that should be used to minimize participants' risks and to maximize benefits. The authors describe lessons learned from the large-scale Flint Photovoice involving youth, adults, and policy makers.
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