2 - Culture and reproductive ageing

Summary

Introduction

Reproductive ageing is a contextual process that is made meaningful through cultural construction (notions of the body, morality and appropriate reproductive behaviour) and gendered experience (of individual women and men to physiological change and in terms of the social expectations that accompany them). It cannot be de-contextualised.

The relevance of a cultural and anthropological perspective is that it focuses on the lived experience of ageing and the associated diverse meanings that inform people's health-seeking behaviour in response to it. It is ethnographic in the sense of being characterised as the first-hand study of a specific community, not necessarily located in the same place. The focus is on obtaining diverse local perceptions through the intense engagement of the researcher in the life worlds of members of the community. The ethnographic example is the basis upon which theoretical and comparative generalisations are then made. An ethnographic perspective on the ways in which ageing is conceptualised, experienced and acted upon is important as it facilitates an emic (actor-centred) and interpretive understanding beyond the insights provided by statistics and data on prevalence. Such an analysis is critical in the sense that it is able to provide explanations as to why the statistics are as they are.

Cultural studies on reproduction and ageing tend to focus on three key issues:

1. ■ the body and diverse meanings attributed to bodily processes (how does procreation take place, who ‘owns’ the body)

2. ■ morality/religion (what is appropriate reproductive behaviour)

3. ■ social hierarchy/power (who has more reproductive work, responsibility and entitlement).