The trouble with vulnerability : Narrating ageing during the COVID-19 pandemic
Vasara, P., Simola, A., & Olakivi, A. (2023). The trouble with vulnerability : Narrating ageing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Aging Studies, 64, Article 101106. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaging.2023.101106
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Journal of Aging StudiesDate
2023Discipline
YhteiskuntapolitiikkaIkääntymisen ja hoivan tutkimuksen huippuyksikköHyvinvoinnin tutkimuksen yhteisöSocial and Public PolicyCentre of Excellence in Research on Ageing and CareSchool of WellbeingCopyright
© 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc.
In this paper, we have used the exceptional circumstances created by the COVID-19 pandemic as a window for investigating the ambivalent, stereotypical and often-incongruent portrayals of exceptional vulnerability and resilient self-management that define the self-constructions available for older adults. From the onset of the pandemic, older adults were publicly and homogenously presented as a biomedically vulnerable population, and the implementation of restrictive measures also raised concerns over their psychosocial vulnerability and wellbeing. Meanwhile, the key political responses to the pandemic in most affluent countries aligned with the dominant paradigms of successful and active ageing that build on the ideal of resilient and responsible ageing subjects. Within this context, in our paper we have examined how older individuals negotiated such conflicting characterisations in relation to their self-understandings. In empirical terms, we drew on data comprising written narratives collected in Finland during the initial stage of the pandemic. We demonstrate how the stereotypical and ageist connotations associated with older adults' psychosocial vulnerability may have paradoxically offered some older adults novel building blocks for positive self-constructions as individuals who are not exceptionally vulnerable, despite ageist assumptions of homogeneity. However, our analysis also shows that such building blocks are not equally distributed. Our conclusions highlight the lack of legitimate ways for people to admit to vulnerabilities and voice their needs without the fear of being categorised under ageist, othering and stigmatised identities.
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ElsevierISSN Search the Publication Forum
0890-4065Keywords
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https://converis.jyu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/176831868
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Research Council of FinlandFunding program(s)
Centre of Excellence, AoFAdditional information about funding
This study was part of research conducted in the Centre of Excellence in Research on Ageing and Care (CoE AgeCare, 2018–2025, project numbers 312303 and 312310) funded by the Academy of Finland. The funding source Academy of Finland has no involvement in the study design, in the collection, analysis or interpretation of data, in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to submit the article for publication. The Ella and Georg Ehnrooth Foundation, the Institute for the Analysis of Change in Contemporary and Historical Societies (IACS) at the Université Catholique de Louvain, Le Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique - FNRS (Crdit n. 1.B.376.23F), and Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health have also supported the writing process. ...License
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