Six - Conclusions: Policy Focus

Summary

Introduction

This chapter offers key conclusions and a policy focus in the hope of going some way to bridging the large gap between youth and older age studies and, thus, addressing the relative lack of geographical curiosity about midlife which has prevented us from seeing the diversity of middle- aged people and the plurality of their lifecourses over time and space. In this short book, it was not my aim to provide a thorough analysis; instead, I wanted to issue an invitation to: look with curiosity at midlife bodies, transitions, spaces and being in the middle of the lifecourse; and join the efforts to push forward this fascinating research field. I emphasize that midlife can neither be hollowed out by perpetuating demands for youthfulness nor ‘swallowed’ by the increasing tide of literature advancing older age geographies. The in- betweenness of this concept is a strength for geographical enquiry and policies that aim to improve people's capabilities.

Between youth and ageing geographies

‘Knowledge is a social creation’, claim Monk and Hanson (1982) in their famous article ‘On not excluding half of the human in human geography’. It is not surprising, given their analysis of the history of gender research in geography, that we need to be critical towards omissions of midlife in knowledge production. Midlife geographies, similarly, have been largely overlooked in the discipline despite midlife being a highly complex and pivotal stage in the lifecourse that produces spaces and practices through intergenerational relations (Hopkins and Pain 2007). This is not because we do not have a specific definition of midlife. I do not think that it is useful to provide a strict, fixed definition of midlife which would clearly mark this lifecourse stage between youth and older age. In terms of what midlife is, the answer would be that it is a contingent construct. As such, it is important to understand how it was academically invented and what the consequences are of this invention. Intergenerational time, temporality and timing, seen through ‘markers’ of midlife events or transitions – all affect and shape the layers of the concept of midlife.