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Enjoying the third age!: Discourse, identity and liminality in extra-care communities

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Enjoying the third age! Discourse, identity and liminality in extra-care communities. / West, Karen; Shaw, Rachel; Hagger, Barbara et al.
In: Ageing and Society, Vol. 37, No. 9, 01.10.2017, p. 1874-1897.

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West K, Shaw R, Hagger B, Holland C. Enjoying the third age! Discourse, identity and liminality in extra-care communities. Ageing and Society. 2017 Oct 1;37(9):1874-1897. Epub 2016 Jul 13. doi: 10.1017/S0144686X16000556

Author

West, Karen ; Shaw, Rachel ; Hagger, Barbara et al. / Enjoying the third age! Discourse, identity and liminality in extra-care communities. In: Ageing and Society. 2017 ; Vol. 37, No. 9. pp. 1874-1897.

Bibtex

@article{afd6d44fd9dd4462a217f95d7d489488,
title = "Enjoying the third age!: Discourse, identity and liminality in extra-care communities",
abstract = " Extra-care housing has been an important and growing element of housing and care for older people in the United Kingdom since the 1990s. Previous studies have examined specific features and programmes within extra-care locations, but few have studied how residents negotiate social life and identity. Those that have, have noted that while extra care brings many health-related and social benefits, extra-care communities can also be difficult affective terrain. Given that many residents are now {\textquoteleft}ageing in place{\textquoteright} in extra care, it is timely to revisit these questions of identity and affect. Here we draw on the qualitative element of a three-year, mixed-method study of 14 extra-care villages and schemes run by the ExtraCare Charitable Trust. We follow Alem{\`a}n in regarding residents' ambivalent accounts of life in ExtraCare as important windows on the way in which liminal residents negotiate the dialectics of dependence and independence. However, we suggest that the dialectic of interest here is that of the third and fourth age, as described by Gilleard and Higgs. We set that dialectic within a post-structuralist/Lacanian framework in order to examine the different modes of enjoyment that liminal residents procure in ExtraCare's third age public spaces and ideals, and suggest that their complaints can be read in three ways: as statements about altered material conditions; as inter-subjective bolstering of group identity; and as fantasmatic support for liminal identities. Finally, we examine the implications that this latter psycho-social reading of residents' complaints has for enhancing and supporting residents' wellbeing. ",
keywords = "Lacan, fantasy, post-structuralist discourse theory, psycho-social studies, the Real, third age/fourth age dialectic, transitions",
author = "Karen West and Rachel Shaw and Barbara Hagger and Carol Holland",
year = "2017",
month = oct,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1017/S0144686X16000556",
language = "English",
volume = "37",
pages = "1874--1897",
journal = "Ageing and Society",
issn = "0144-686X",
publisher = "Cambridge University Press",
number = "9",

}

RIS

TY - JOUR

T1 - Enjoying the third age!

T2 - Discourse, identity and liminality in extra-care communities

AU - West, Karen

AU - Shaw, Rachel

AU - Hagger, Barbara

AU - Holland, Carol

PY - 2017/10/1

Y1 - 2017/10/1

N2 - Extra-care housing has been an important and growing element of housing and care for older people in the United Kingdom since the 1990s. Previous studies have examined specific features and programmes within extra-care locations, but few have studied how residents negotiate social life and identity. Those that have, have noted that while extra care brings many health-related and social benefits, extra-care communities can also be difficult affective terrain. Given that many residents are now ‘ageing in place’ in extra care, it is timely to revisit these questions of identity and affect. Here we draw on the qualitative element of a three-year, mixed-method study of 14 extra-care villages and schemes run by the ExtraCare Charitable Trust. We follow Alemàn in regarding residents' ambivalent accounts of life in ExtraCare as important windows on the way in which liminal residents negotiate the dialectics of dependence and independence. However, we suggest that the dialectic of interest here is that of the third and fourth age, as described by Gilleard and Higgs. We set that dialectic within a post-structuralist/Lacanian framework in order to examine the different modes of enjoyment that liminal residents procure in ExtraCare's third age public spaces and ideals, and suggest that their complaints can be read in three ways: as statements about altered material conditions; as inter-subjective bolstering of group identity; and as fantasmatic support for liminal identities. Finally, we examine the implications that this latter psycho-social reading of residents' complaints has for enhancing and supporting residents' wellbeing.

AB - Extra-care housing has been an important and growing element of housing and care for older people in the United Kingdom since the 1990s. Previous studies have examined specific features and programmes within extra-care locations, but few have studied how residents negotiate social life and identity. Those that have, have noted that while extra care brings many health-related and social benefits, extra-care communities can also be difficult affective terrain. Given that many residents are now ‘ageing in place’ in extra care, it is timely to revisit these questions of identity and affect. Here we draw on the qualitative element of a three-year, mixed-method study of 14 extra-care villages and schemes run by the ExtraCare Charitable Trust. We follow Alemàn in regarding residents' ambivalent accounts of life in ExtraCare as important windows on the way in which liminal residents negotiate the dialectics of dependence and independence. However, we suggest that the dialectic of interest here is that of the third and fourth age, as described by Gilleard and Higgs. We set that dialectic within a post-structuralist/Lacanian framework in order to examine the different modes of enjoyment that liminal residents procure in ExtraCare's third age public spaces and ideals, and suggest that their complaints can be read in three ways: as statements about altered material conditions; as inter-subjective bolstering of group identity; and as fantasmatic support for liminal identities. Finally, we examine the implications that this latter psycho-social reading of residents' complaints has for enhancing and supporting residents' wellbeing.

KW - Lacan

KW - fantasy

KW - post-structuralist discourse theory

KW - psycho-social studies

KW - the Real

KW - third age/fourth age dialectic

KW - transitions

U2 - 10.1017/S0144686X16000556

DO - 10.1017/S0144686X16000556

M3 - Journal article

VL - 37

SP - 1874

EP - 1897

JO - Ageing and Society

JF - Ageing and Society

SN - 0144-686X

IS - 9

ER -