Nostalgia, ageing, and older age

Stanier, Jessica

Abstract

This chapter offers an overview of connections between nostalgia, ageing, and older age and attempts to make a case for engaging with the complexity of older age when analysing nostalgia. The first two sections sketch out the significance of temporal belonging in ageing, older age, and nostalgia, making a distinction between reminiscence and nostalgia at older age. The latter part of this chapter explores how multiple nostalgias—from various generational standpoints—can influence perceptions of intergenerational conflict, using the UK context to illustrate these dynamics. This chapter thus attends to the phenomenon of nostalgia in relation to older age, while attempting not to replicate the ageist stereotype of nostalgia as inevitable later in life. It argues that such a reification can obscure both the complex lived realities of ageing and more multifaceted politics of nostalgia at play in various contexts.

• Online Publication Date: Aug 21, 2024
• Publication Date: Aug 21, 2024
• Deposit Date: Aug 27, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 27, 2024
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Pages: 213-223
• Book Title: The Routledge Handbook of Nostalgia
• Chapter Number: 18
• ISBN: 9781032429205
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003364924-20
• Keywords: nostalgia; age studies; old age; intergenerational; generation
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/12809125