four - ‘Staying me’

Summary

… if the intention is to understand the causes, connections and consequences of power processes, we have to look very closely at the everyday lives of the actors, explore the small, ordinary issues that take place within different contexts and show how compliance, adaptation but also resistance and open struggle are generated. In this endeavour, we shall find no strong visible manifestations of power. Rather we have to look for small flashes of command that may peek out from behind the screens. (Villarreal, 1992, p 258)

While the previous chapter addressed the ‘doing’ strategies employed by older people, this chapter focuses on their cognitive ways of coping. The chapter title, ‘staying me’, refers to older people's efforts to retain a sense of continuity between their past, present and anticipated future lives, and to sustain a sense of self, often in the face of situations that threaten to disrupt continuity and undermine a positive self-concept. The ‘staying me’ theme encompasses two categories, continuity and self-affirmation. Given the concern with cognitive rather than practical ways of managing, there is more scope for researcher interpretation of meaning, as discussed further in Chapter Seven. The title of the ‘staying me’ theme and some sub-themes in this chapter reflect my interpretations, rather than necessarily the words of participants. While this chapter is informed by and structured in line with the grounded theory approach outlined in Chapter One, the analysis is further developed and enriched by reading the transcripts and diaries as narrative ‘wholes’. As in the previous chapter, findings from the study are interwoven with other research findings and theoretical material.

Continuity

The previous chapter explored ways in which participants strove to maintain a sense of continuity through ‘doing’, for example, by keeping up their usual routines and by maintaining standards of care of the body, home and garden. According to Atchley's (1989) ‘continuity theory’, older people attempt to preserve continuity both in terms of circumstances and behaviour (external continuity) and also in ways of thinking and perceiving (internal continuity). Although Atchley sees identity as relatively fixed across social situations, he also allows for processes of reinterpretation as new information and experiences are incorporated within an individual's identity:

Reinterpretation is an important adaptive process through which individuals create coherent pictures of the past and link the past to a purposeful, integrated present.