New New Ethnographies Ethnographies Seeking to better understand what it means to grow A Ageing selves and g older in contemporary Britain from the perspective e of older people themselves, this richly detailed i n everyday life in the ethnographic study engages in debates over g selfhood and people’s relationships with time. s Based on research conducted in an English former e north of England coal mining village, Cathrine Degnen focuses on lv the everyday experiences of older people living e s there. She explores how the category of old age Years in the making a comes to be assigned and experienced in daily life n through multiple registers of interaction. These d include ‘memory work’ about people, places and e CATHRINE DEGNEN webs of relations in a postindustrial setting that v e has undergone profound social transformation. r Challenging both the notion of a homogenous y d relationship with time across generations and the a idea of a universalised middle-aged self, Degnen y argues that the complex interplay of social, cultural l i f and physical attributes of ageing means that older e people can come to occupy a different position in i n relation to time and to the self than younger people. t Degnen’s account provides fascinating insight into h what is at stake for the ageing self in regards to e how people come to know, experience and dwell in n o the world. She describes the ways in which these r distinctive forms of temporality and narrativity also Cathrine Degnen is Lecturer th come to be used against older people, denigrated in Social Anthropology o socially in some contexts as ‘less-than-fully adult’. at Newcastle University, UK f This text will be of great interest to researchers E and students in anthropology, sociology, human n Cover image by Melanie Manchot. g geography and social gerontology particularly With Mountains II, 1999. la those interested in selfhood, time, memory, the From the series Liminal Portraits. n anthropology of Britain and the lived experience of C-print. Used by kind permission of d Melanie Manchot social change. D E G N E N www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk DEGN000 ppc.indd 1 30/10/2012 14:29:09 Ageing selves and everyday life in the North of England New Ethnographies Series editor Alexander Thomas T. Smith Already published The British in rural France: Lifestyle migration and the ongoing quest for a better way of life Michaela Benson Chagos islanders in Mauritius and the UK: Forced displacement and onward migration Laura Jeffery Integration, locality and everyday life: After asylum Mark Maguire and Fiona Murphy An ethnography of English football fans: Cans, cops and carnival Geoff Pearson Literature and agency in English fiction reading: A study of the Henry Williamson Society Adam Reed Devolution and the Scottish Conservatives: Banal activism, electioneering and the politics of irrelevance Alexander Smith Ageing selves and everyday life in the North of England Years in the making Cathrine Degnen Manchester University Press Manc hester Copyright © Cathrine Degnen 2012 The right of Cathrine Degnen to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Published by Manchester University Press Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA, UK www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for ISBN 978 0 7190 8308 2 hardback First published 2012 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Typeset by Action Publishing Technology Ltd, Gloucester Contents List of figures and maps pagevii Acknowledgements ix Series editor’s foreword xiii 1 Introduction 1 2 Dodworth: people and place 26 3 Endings, pasts and futures: temporal complexities and memory talk 56 4 Monitoring the boundaries of age: intra-generational perspectives on ‘old age’ 79 5 Reconfiguring normative models of self 98 6 Narrative forms and shapes 119 7 Conclusions 138 References 147 Index 156 List of figures and maps Figures 1 The Crossroads, Dodworth High Street. Photo taken by author page 28 2 Where Ida’s house used to be. Photo taken by author 74 3 Pilley Hill, from Dodworth Bottom. Photo taken by author 111 Maps 1 Selected villages in the greater Barnsley area. Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council 27 2 Dodworth and Gilroyd, edged by the M1 on the right. Barnsley is just to the east of the M1 and is largely out of view on this map 28 Acknowledgements I owe an enormous debt of gratitude and thanks to the many people in Dodworth that took part in this research. Additionally, there are some very special people that I wish to thank for their friendship and kindness, making me, a rootless academic immigrant, feel at home for the first time since I had left it ten years prior: Lucy Senior, Joyce Prigmore, Nellie Grindy, Phyllis and Horace Hirst, Fred, Jackie and Jo-Anne Prigmore, Jane Jowitt-Pickering, Olly and Anthea Bullough, Jean, John and Barbara Hirst, Norah and Harry Harrison, Phyllis Mulrooney, Norah Dickenson, Elsie Nixon, Tom and Blanche Tipping, Gill, Ray, Nerissa and Jake France, Roger Kilner, Sandra and Mick O’Connor, Sue Staples and Margaret Holderness. I would also like to extend my great thanks to colleagues and friends who have in various guises provided their support over the years in developing this book. This includes Michaela Benson, Maggie Bolton, Thom Brooks, Andrew Dawson, Colin Duncan, Jeanette Edwards, Elizabeth Hallam, Tim Ingold, Steph Lawler, Sharon Macdonald, Kristen Norget, Raksha Pande, Mike Savage, Colin Scott, Simon Susen, two anonymous peer reviewers with MUP press and the entire MUP team. I would especially like to thank Katharine Tyler and Peter Phillimore for their invaluable comments on the entire manuscript as well as for their unstinting support and friendship. Funding from a McGill FGSR Social Sciences Research Funding Grant, a McGill Department of Anthropology and Faculty of Graduate Studies Award, the Radcliffe-Brown Trust Fund for Social Anthropological Research, STANDD/ AGREE at McGill University and the Faculty REF fund at Newcastle University are all gratefully acknowledged. I also gratefully acknowledge permission from the publishers to use elements of work that have previously appeared in print in the following: Degnen, C. (2007) ‘Minding the gap: the construction of old age and oldness amongst peers’, Journal of Aging Studies 21(1): 69–80; Degnen, C. (2007) ‘Back to the future: temporality, narrative and the ageing self’, in Creativity and Cultural Improvisation, Elizabeth Hallam and Tim Ingold (eds), ASA Monograph Series, Oxford: Berg; and Degnen, C. (2005) ‘Relationality, place and absence: a three-dimensional perspective on social memory’, The Sociological Review53(4): 729–44.