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In the autumn of their lives: Exploring the geographies and rhythms of old[er] age masculinities
Author(s) -
Riley Mark
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
transactions of the institute of british geographers
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.196
H-Index - 107
eISSN - 1475-5661
pISSN - 0020-2754
DOI - 10.1111/tran.12423
Subject(s) - masculinity , situated , distancing , gender studies , sociology , framing (construction) , period (music) , rhythm , older people , cognitive dissonance , psychology , social psychology , history , aesthetics , gerontology , medicine , philosophy , disease , archaeology , covid-19 , pathology , artificial intelligence , computer science , infectious disease (medical specialty)
Using a novel longitudinal qualitative approach of revisiting older men across an elongated period, this paper addresses the lack of geographical attention given to older age masculinities specifically, and the limited exploration of the temporal aspects of masculinity more generally. Situated within debates around intersectional and relational approaches to masculinity and the critical geographies of ageing, the paper utilises insights from Lefebvre’s rhythmanalysis to examine how older men (re)produce, organise, and improvise rhythms in using and experiencing places as they age. The paper shows how the notion of masculinities as relational is given fresh insight when considered through the lens of rhythms, offering a less dualistic framing of men than those centred on bodily capacity and that automatically present older men as subordinate, redundant, or inferior. The paper draws on in‐depth, repeat, qualitative interviews across four phases in an 18‐year period with 32 older men (over 65) in the UK. The analysis points to how changing rhythms as men age may be accommodated through, and subsumed within, wider rhythms of continued work, periods of busyness, and eurhythmia (accordance of rhythms) with those around them. Conversely, aspects of arrhythmia (dissonance or conflict of rhythms) that have previously been pointed to as marginalising may also offer older men a level of distinction – allowing, for example, a distancing from age‐graded spaces and prevalent discourses of older age as well as enabling socially dominant masculine positions compared to others at the local level. The paper also points to how masculinities are not only relational to other people and places but also to natural and non‐human rhythms and daily and seasonal contingencies as well as across time.