Abstract

KLEIN, Alejandro. The Problematized Old Age. Social Imaginaries that Tolerate what Would Be Intolerable. Desacatos [online]. 2018, n.57, pp.120-135. ISSN 2448-5144.

This paper seeks to point out the importance of the high subjective experimentation in the group of older adults. We take as examples three stories of life from Mexico. By “high subjective experimentation” one must understand the capacity that aging people are showing to modifying their views, scales of values, way of seeing the world, changing roles, and to introduce modifications to the inheritance that comes from their grandparents. This experimentation, rather than based on socio-economic class difference, seems to maintain cross-generational landmarks in common. These older adults reveal inventiveness and creativity, rethinking the validity of the Giddonian concept of emancipatory politics, whose maximum expression seems to be the generational confrontation with the grandparents themselves.

Keywords : elderly; grandfathers; emancipatory politics; subjectivity; social stereotypes.

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