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At higher risk of both contracting COVID-19, and suffering ill effects from it, older people have figured prominently in accounts of the pandemic. In Aotearoa, government messaging enjoined the population to protect older people, who became the implicit subjects of the widely shared appeal to ‘stay home, save lives’. Drawing on interviews with 35 people aged 62 and older, we explore how older New Zealanders imagined their own risk, resilience, and relationships – and in doing so their membership in the imagined community of this island nation. While some of our participants did feel vulnerable to COVID-19 and adjusted their lifestyles accordingly, others felt strong and healthy even as they acknowledged that age was a risk factor that theoretically applied to them. Furthermore, many of the people we spoke to expressed concern for other members of society, asserting a form of agency through solidarity and recognition that went unacknowledged in the dominant social discourse about what it meant to be old in the context of COVID-19. Through these reflections, participants often directly considered how old age figured in political messaging around the pandemic, in some cases feeling cared for and recognised and in others feeling as if age itself had become a political tool. We argue that ‘older’ New Zealanders are a more diverse group than was acknowledged at the time and also a more agentive one, playing a critical contributing role in the pandemic response rather than merely acting as a rationale for public health measures.

Elder Agency: How Older New Zealanders Played Their Part in Aotearoa New Zealand’s COVID-19 Response