A ‘new materialist’ lens on aging well: Special things in later life

Abstract

Aging well is a process of making sense of self and aging. Over the last two decades, researchers have studied how individuals make self-meaning through person–object relations. Much of this work has focused on how individuals assign meaning to special objects, yet little is known about the influence of the physicality of these things on this meaning-making. This paper introduces a “new materialist” lens to aging-well research by distilling and synthesizing key assumptions from diverse bodies of literature. Each assumption is illustrated with data from a recent series of interviews with older women. The paper demonstrates how this theoretical perspective may be applied to study the making of self-meaning through such later-life transitions as widowhood. A new materialist lens can enhance understanding of identity construction, and more broadly, aging well, in terms of later-life relationships with special things.

Introduction

Aging well is a multi-faceted and, at times, contentious concept which gerontologists have studied for over fifty years (Havighurst, 1961, Hendricks and Achenbaum, 1999). With the aging of the Baby Boomers, aging well is receiving renewed interest in Western society. This is evident in the appearance of a myriad of related terms in research, practice, policy, and popular media (e.g. successful aging, active aging, productive aging, creative aging). On the one hand, use of the concept has been criticized for a focus on prescriptive standards requiring certain levels of resources and of activity (Biggs, 2001, Holstein, 2000). Presumably, if individuals do not meet these standards, aging well is not possible, and the concept appears exclusive. However, recent research has sought to conceptualize additional, diverse ways in which people may age well. This broader, more inclusive approach is evident in researchers' interests in how individuals find a fit between their resources and societal demands in ways that make sense to themselves (e.g. Coleman et al., 1999, Dittmann-Kohli, 1990, Phelan et al., 2004, Westerhof et al., 2003, Wong, 2000). One such conceptualization of aging well is as an open-ended process in which individuals make sense of self and of their aging in various contexts amid later-life transitions like retirement, widowhood, downsizing, and/or increasing frailty (Chapman, 2005). This definition informs this paper.

As part of this research trend, aging-well researchers are turning their attention to later-life, self-meaning making. One way to study this identity construction is to focus on social interaction. From a symbolic interactionist perspective, when people interact, they exchange information about each other and create new information or meaning about their selves (LaRossa and Reitzes, 1993, Mead, 1934). A second way to study identity construction is to focus on relationships with physical objects. These objects are physical material, which may be noticed if bumped into or when they are absent. They enable people to take action. The special things that some older adults in Western society keep through the course of their lives are very particular pieces (Chapman, in preparation). A loss of self may result if people are forced to give special things away or if they are taken away. Relationships with special things may last a long time.

Over the last two decades, gerontologists, sociologists, psychologists, and anthropologists, among others, have contributed to a special or cherished-object literature (e.g. Belk, 1992, Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton, 1981, Hecht, 2001, Marcoux, 2001a, McCracken, 1987, Price et al., 2000, Rubinstein, 2002, Sherman and Newman, 1977-78). Older adults and their cherished possessions have been studied for how individuals assign meaning to these things and how, as a result, the possessions provide a sense of comfort and continuity, and sometimes, a sense of burden (Curasi, 1999, Lustbader, 1996, McCracken, 1987, McCracken, 1988, Unruh, 1983). Increasingly, as with the shift in aging-well research, interest has turned to how older adults construct identity relative to change (e.g. Marcoux, 2001a, Rubinstein and Parmelee, 1992), such as during the dispersal of things in downsizing a home.

The point of reference in this cherished-object research has tended to be the person; the object has been of secondary interest. Much of the emphasis of the literature has been on humans' influence on special things, as part of older adults' control of their physical environments (e.g. Lawton, 1990, Paton and Cram, 1992). We have assumed that humans possess sole agency in meaning-making with objects and assign meaning to objects as they are produced and consumed. However, researchers across diverse disciplines including material culture studies, sociology, history, and anthropology are re-examining the presumed dominance of object by subject. Rather than assuming, as has been done since the early Enlightenment in the 1600s (de Grazia, Quilligan, & Stallybrass, 1996) that “subject” and “object” are distinct, theorists have begun to explore how subject and object co-construct each other (Brown, 2004, McCallum, 1999). To understand either humans or the objects with which they live, we must study them in relationship. Humans influence and are influenced by the inanimate parts of our world (Brown, 2004, Daston, 2004, de Grazia et al., 1996, Ford, 1991, Graves-Brown, 2000, Knappett, 2002, McCallum, 1999). My interest here is not in studying artifacts in terms of human imposition of meaning on an object but to recommend that we dedicate attention to understanding the role of the materiality of physical objects in their relationships with older people (Brown, 2004, Graves-Brown, 2000, Ingold, 2000, Miller, 1998).

In this theoretical paper, I introduce a “new materialist” (Brown, 2004, p. 7) lens to aging-well research. This is a lens that directs researchers to ‘look’ more closely at the physical dimensions of person–object relations. Though related to established materialist critique as found in the sociology of culture, a new materialist lens is distinct in its micro-level attention to the physicality of person–object relations. Rather than being concerned with the materialization of socio-structural and cultural phenomena (Marx, 1995) or of the interdependence of culture and society (Griswold, 2004), new materialist work is concerned with micro-level understanding of what the nature of specific, physical objects enables people to do. Whereas materialist critique focuses on material effects of ideas and ideology, new materialism is concerned with how materiality influences ideas (Brown, 2004). The language of this theorizing is that of “mutuality” (Graves-Brown, 2000, p. 2) and “codependence” (Knappett, 2002, pp. 98–99).

I begin by distilling three key assumptions from new materialist theorizing. Each assumption is illustrated with data from an interview with Hannah, as part of a recent series of in-depth interviews with older women. House also receives significant attention in the paper, for the physicality of House plays an active role in a mutually influencing relationship between Hannah and House. An empirical analysis and discussion of Hannah and four other older women and their special things is forthcoming (Chapman, in preparation). Finally, I demonstrate how these new materialist assumptions may be applied to aging-well research. This paper introduces a new materialist lens to aging-well research and considers this lens as a tool for enhancing understanding of later-life identity construction with special things, and more broadly, aging well.