The ways in which differently aged persons participate in livelihoods is not well understood. The elderly are often cast as dependent, yet many make significant contributions to the food security and social support of their families and communities. Despite this, international development projects and the empirical research on which they are based, including those focused on livelihood studies, are predominantly youth-oriented and focus on the material exchanges of young and middle-aged persons that supply income and subsistence to households. This research project builds on previous research within gerontology, geographies of age, feminist geographies and geographies of care to re-conceptualize the way in which the social construction of age has implications for livelihood strategies. By employing a variety of methods, including comprehensive household surveys, individual life histories interviews, focus groups, participant observation and participatory mapping, this research will document the social relationships through which livelihood strategies are practiced by elderly persons in a rural community in Northern Ghana. Findings from this research will demonstrate that diverse livelihood strategies are not just found and fostered within the activities of individuals, but also in the politics of inter-generational relationships within households. This project expects to demonstrate that the elderly face particular opportunities and limitations as a result of the socio-spatial relations associated with later life, rendering their livelihood strategies distinct from those practiced by younger persons.
This project will help inform development-oriented livelihood studies which have tended to focus on programs for young and middle-aged adults and have underplayed the importance of the role of the elderly in household livelihood strategies. This research connects with the growing awareness of the rights and needs of older persons in developing countries where the neglect of the elderly continues, despite international policies, including the United Nation's International Plan of Action on Ageing ratified in the early 21st century. Result of this work will contribute both empirically and theoretically to the goals of feminist geography and the importance of gendered perspectives in development studies.
The major goal of this project was to understand the livelihood strategies built by elderly members of a small agrarian village in northern Ghana. The project seeks to understand these livelihood strategies by challenging the assumption that elderly persons are dependent and passive participants in livelihoods strategies. The project takes the starting point that livelihood studies typically marginalize care and fail to consider the relational and interdependent nature of connections that found many livelihood strategies. This research project includes a total of 10 months of qualitative research--including participant observation, focus group interviews and individual interviews with elderly community members, and their friends and family living in the village and elsewhere in northern Ghana. This research project questions the common assumptions that undergird livelihoods approaches, where people are often conceptualized as rational economic actors, acting to fulfill their individual or household-level economic interests. Additionally, findings from this project challenge common characterizations of rural communities in developing places – particularly those that suggest these communities are more ‘traditional’ and have strong extended family networks that ensure support for the elderly and other dependent persons. These assumptions ignore non-material and social motivations for everyday practices that shape livelihood strategies and obscure the potential vulnerability of elderly persons and others who experience decreasing ability to engage in productive labor. These assumptions are challenged by the research in the following ways: (1) there is significant empirical support demonstrating the active role of elderly community members. They continue to engage in domestic and farm labor in later life, albeit it in increasingly contingent ways. They also work to provide material and non-material support to others, thus contributing to their material and social well-being; (2) neither family ties nor residency (co-habitation) are a guarantee of adequate resource distribution towards elderly family members. The obligations and expectations exist in cultural traditions, but do not ensure that care is provided--priorities are constantly negotiated and the elderly may suffer as the needs of others are prioritized ahead of them; (3) care may be expected from family members living in other places (daughters in particular), but caregivers can face pressure to prioritize the support of their husband and children, often until acute yet significant degrees of illness or end of life allow for a shift in priorities; (4) livelihoods are negotiated and constructed through a variety of personal relationships. Instead of individual and/or household-based practices, livelihoods are characterized by interdependencies that transcend the household. The intellectual merit of this research lies in the ways it complicates the standard approach taken to understanding livelihood practices. By incorporating concepts from feminist work on care and geographical work on gender and on aging, this research critiques development-oriented livelihoods approaches, which have tended to underplay the effects of socially and spatially constructed understandings of age and gender, as well as the importance in social well-being in motivating everyday decision making. This research adds a depth and richness to scholarship on rural livelihoods in Africa. Furthermore, this project has broader impacts as it connects with the growing awareness of the rights and needs of older persons in developing places where the neglect of the elderly continues, despite international policies ratified in the early 21st century. Elderly people continue to be important contributors to the support of families and communities and are thus an important target population for economic and social development. Both within policy and scholarship, the need for a richer and expanded empirical knowledge of aging and the elderly in different contexts is agreed upon. This research project will be presented as a doctoral dissertation, as well as published in peer-reviewed journals within the disciplines of development, geography and gerontology.
