‘I still want to be part of the world...where I belong’. A case study of the experiences of a man with Alzheimer’s of dementia-friendly guided tours at an art museum

There is a growing interest in the role art museums might play in enriching the lives of persons with dementia. The literature has started incorporating the views of persons with dementia in the knowledge production, but in-depth explorations of their art experiences are still rare in the literature. This article adds to the research with a case study of a man with Alzheimer’s who regularly takes part in dementia-friendly guided tours at his local art museum. The article examines through a narrative analysis the role his visits to the art museum might play in the way he navigates life with Alzheimer’s. The authors argue that the art experiences are important cultural resources in the man’s effort to ‘hold his own’ faced with Alzheimer’s. The study is bound to a Norwegian context, but the art programme has similarities with related programmes at art museums in other countries.

Moving residence in later life: actively shaping place and wellbeing

Policy discourse favours the idea of “ageing in place” but many older people move home and into different kinds of residential settings. This article extends the understanding of how relocation can promote as well as diminish older people’s well-being. Using relational understandings of place and capabilities (people’s freedoms and opportunities to be and to do what they value) we explored well-being across the relocation trajectories of 21 people aged 65–91 years living in diverse residential settings in Scotland. We found that a diverse array of capabilities mattered for well-being and that relocation was often motivated by concerns to secure “at-risk” capabilities for valued activities and relationships. Moving residence impacted several other capabilities, in addition to these, both, positively and negatively. We suggest that a capability approach offers a valuable lens for understanding and supporting well-being through behavioural models of late-life relocation.

Queering generativity and futurity: LGBTQ2IA+ stories of resistance, resurgence, and resilience

A preoccupation with heteronormative metrics of success in aging leaves many studies of “LGBT aging” focused on the needs, failings, and vul­nerabilities of older LGBTQ2IA+ people (i.e. lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, two-spirit, intersex, asexual, and people of other nonnormative sexual and gender expressions). As a result, LGBTQ2IA+ olders are fre­quently depicted as isolated, re-closeted, or simply nonexistent. Heeding calls to intervene into such bleak and pathologizing portrayals of queer/ trans aging (e.g. Ramirez-Valles 2016; Sandberg & Marshall 2017), this article explores diverse subjectivities, nonnormative aging experiences, and their potential intergenerational implications. It draws on stories of queerness, gender, aging, futurity, and social change from 13 LGBTQ2IA+ people ranging in age from 23 to 74, recorded in an intergenerational research-generation workshop held in Nogojiwanong (Peterborough, Canada) in 2018. This article argues that queer and trans stories are crucial to confronting the erasure of LGBTQ2IA+ aging, aiming to extend ongoing efforts within aging studies to queer concepts of successful aging, aging futures, generativity, and intergenerationality. Ultimately, this article aims to complicate constricted understandings of queer/trans aging, instead of depicting LGBTQ2IA+ people aging with connection, pride, learning, and purpose, as well as with struggle and vulnerability.

Retirement transitions in the 21st century: A scoping review of the changing nature of retirement in Europe

There are important transformations taking place regarding the ways to transition from work-life to retirement. The timing and pathways are changing and many individuals undergo long periods of being in-between working and retirement life. Yet, our cultural understandings of retirement tend to maintain a clear distinction between pre- and post-retirement life. While the changes in retirement trajectories is not new, the trend seems to have accelerated in recent decades. We focus on what is known from the literature about the tendencies in alternative retirement trajectories of healthy seniors in Europe since 2000. We review some conceptual and political transitions in the societal understandings of retirement, followed by a scoping review in three sections: 1) Employment after retirement, 2) Self-employment, and 3) Unretirement. We conclude that while 21st century retirement trajectories are complex and understudied, there are some clear tendencies regarding who engages in such practices and why.

UK magazine advertising portrayals of older adults: a longitudinal, content analytic, and a social semiotic lens

The focus of this article is the depiction of older adults in UK magazine advertising. Theoretically located in the broad area of cultural gerontology, with its central focus on culturally constitutive meaning of age(ing) (e.g. Twigg & Martin 2015), it applies social semiotic categories (Kress & van Leeuwen 1996, 2004) and draws on critical discourse analytic insights in investigating persistent trends in advertising images of older adults. These are linked with the role of advertising media in constructing and contributing to specific social “imaginary” or “imagination” of later life. A content analytic comparison between two corpora of adverts (221 ads from 1999 to 2004 and 313 ads from 2011 to 2016) reveals only minor changes over time. These include relative consistency in the product categories linked with older models, the adverts predominantly targeting older adults, but a decline in humorous portrayals. A semiotically oriented analysis of a subset of adverts further examines their compositional and affective dimensions, in addition to representational qualities. This uncovers strategies that are in line with aspirational third age discourse and imagery, but which also contribute to the marginalisation of older adults via a restricted portrayal of later life(styles) and can also be seen to problematise “ageless” depictions.