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Sussing out Ageing: Sharing Lesbian & Queer Women's Knowledge Of Sussing Out Ageing: Sharing Lesbian & Queer Women’s Knowledge of Ageing in Aotearoa New Zealand Ella J. Robinson A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand March 2019 Acknowledgements A warm thank you to all the women who took part in this project. To talk about ageing and old age is to acknowledge our own mortality. It can touch our deepest fears and stir all kinds of memories, yet you answered my questions with patience, consideration, interest and kindness. I am deeply grateful. There were so many incredible stories of courage, integrity, and compassion – I wish I could have included them all. I want to thank every single one of you, and all those who came before, who ‘took the road less travelled’ – you have made all the difference. A big thank you to all the people I met on my travels, especially my wonderful hosts in Paekākāriki and Wellington, your hospitality was more than I could ever ask for. Grandma and Grandad – thank you for nurturing your family with love, attentiveness and for passing on your passion and respect for knowledge, you are sorely missed. To Saba and Savta – thank you for your warmth, joy and teaching me the importance of connection. To my parents, Richard and Ettie – your unwavering love and support mean the world to me, I could not have done this without you. Jordan, thank you for always cheering me on. Aunty Margaret and Uncle Anaru, thank you so much for looking out for me throughout this journey, helping me feel at home in Dunedin. A special thank you to Lorna Affleck who gave me the seed of an idea, and to my flatmates and friends (Rose, Lilly and Chanel), thank you for being there through all the ups, the downs, the spirals. Extra gratitude goes to my eagle-eyed proof-reader Margaret Eketone, and to Rose Collier for listening to me practice my defence speech and being so patient (let us play many board games in celebration!) and to Clare and Sam who also helped ease the workload. And a huge amount of gratitude towards you, Sarah, for giving me a roof over my head and sanctuary in the final months. To my supervisors: Emeritus Professor Amanda Barusch and Professor Ruth P. Fitzgerald, thank you for seeing me through to the end; I could not have been in safer hands! Amanda, thank you for your guidance and keen eye, and patiently staying on board throughout all the changes; it is a privilege to have worked with you, and your expertise in the field of ageing was invaluable. Ruth, thank you for your mentorship, sharing your knowledge, and for fostering and strengthening my writer’s voice. The ii commitment and care you express towards your students, at all levels, is phenomenal and carries on into the world through us all. A heartfelt thank you to my fellow postgraduates (and recent Doctors) whose footsteps I follow, especially Dr. Molly George, Dr. Emma McGuirk, Dr. Susan Wardell, and Dr. Nancy Earth. Your reassurances, insights, generosity and tea-room commiserations meant so much to me. To Cathrine, Marj, Les (and recently, Sue): thank you for all the technical support and little acts of kindness – all while dealing with institutional upheaval. A special mention must be given to Heather Sadler for her patient work in helping prepare the document for submission and being an ongoing source of support throughout the whole PhD process (your ability to juggle multiple tasks, questions, and people is astounding!). Thank you to Clare Fraser for helping me practice my interviewing skills, your feedback was so important. Finally, this thesis would not be possible without the support from: The University of Otago Doctoral Scholarship, the Anthropology and Archaeology Department Fieldwork Funding, the University of Otago Humanities Division Conference Travel Award, and the Association of Social Anthropologists Aotearoa New Zealand Kākano Award. iii Abstract This thesis is a qualitative study exploring how some lesbian and queer women (aged 45 to 88) conceptualise, and experience ageing, old age and the life course in Aotearoa New Zealand. Combining semi-structured interviews with fieldwork conducted in Dunedin, Auckland, Wellington and the Kāpiti Coast, this project shares 32 participants’ insights into the importance of multifigurative (tacit and verbal) knowledge exchange in forming subjectivities at the confluence of age, sexuality, and gender. Through personal stories of agency, adjustment, appropriation, and resistance, this multigenerational group of women discuss the changes ageing bestows on multiple levels of personhood – including changes to the body, temporal orientation, sexual drive, and one’s sense of embodiment. They offer humorous, poignant and inspiring perspectives of an ever-changing world where ‘the personal is political’ at all ages, especially when confronted by heteronormative representations of old age, deficit-based rhetoric, and gendered representations of the life course that privileges a reproductive trajectory. Amid the cacophony of ‘successful’, ‘positive’, or ‘active’ ageing discourses, alongside medicalised narratives of decline, this critical, ethnographic study makes space for lesbian and queer women’s phenomenological and social knowledge of ageing to be shared. A key insight is the importance of intra- and intergenerational encounters, friendships, older family members, lovers, and ‘peripheral role models’ for imagining alternative life paths, older age, and how to leave the world. Participants’ stories and impressions of ageing unfold against recent attempts to raise awareness of the difficulties faced by older ‘rainbow’ citizens navigating the New Zealand health and aged care sector. Informed by a multidisciplinary body of literature and the theoretical perspectives of critical, queer, and feminist scholars interested in ageing, I contextualise women’s personal experiences against a backdrop of neoliberal, consumerist and political economic forces. I reveal how such social systems influence both participants’ fears of entering health and aged care institutions, and the language employed by advocates seeking to improve these services. I thus join an increasing number of scholars highlighting the limitations of expanding models of ‘cultural competency’ in biomedical contexts to include queer identities and suggest returning to iv Irihapeti Ramsden’s (2002) important work on Cultural Safety. With an increasingly diverse ageing population, I argue that lesbian and queer women’s perspectives on ageing, and their attempts to create alternative spaces for ‘ageing well’, raise important questions about the future of aged care in New Zealand for everyone. v Preface To get to Alice’s [70s] house on the Otago Peninsula, I had to catch the bus from Dunedin’s city centre. It was a 20-minute trip with great, gulping views of the ocean. The water was steely grey and agitated, the wind playing across its surface as if stroking a cat against the grain of its fur. Alice was waiting for me at the bus stop. She wore dark jeans, black shoes, a dark, puffer jacket, a purple hat and matching scarf and gloves. As we walked up the hill, I noticed purple patterned socks peeping at her ankles. Alice was telling me about the neighbourhood but stopped to ask me kindly, politely, if I could slow down a bit. Abashed, I apologised and adjusted my pace, telling her I was in my ‘rushing about’ mode. “Well, that’s what you do when you’re young,” she smiled. Her house, with its green skirting, was perched on a knoll, gazing at gently rolling hills, dips, and a copse of Eucalyptus. Once inside, Alice promptly offered me a drink: “Plunger coffee, Instant, Green Tea, Earl Grey or Gumboot?” While she made me ‘Gumboot tea’ (English breakfast with milk), Alice praised the convenience of the bus and how she enjoyed taking it to town – it was only if she had to go further afield that she took her own car. But she would have to renew her license soon, she told me, and her motorbike license too. “Well, it’s a scooter really, a Vespa,” she conceded with a laugh. When she last went in for a renewal, she’d seen all the young people waiting to sit their tests and had really felt for them; it was so much harder to get your license these days. She had gotten hers when she was 15, having been taught to drive on a farm in a rural town in ‘Central’ (Central Otago) from early on. She told me how her father, when he went to get his license simply requested one for his wife as well! The interview itself seemed to fly by. Nearing its end, Alice asked abruptly, “Oh! What time did you want to leave!?” Glancing at her watch, she thought if she drove me down the hill immediately I could still make the bus. “Oh, that’s okay, I don’t mind waiting for the next one – I can go for a walk or something.” “Are you sure?” she asked, gripping the arms of the lazy-boy as if ready to spring. “We can probably make it!” There was a spark in her eye, I hesitated for a split second, “Uh… okay, sure!” She launched herself from her chair, grabbed her keys and was out the door. “Close this behind you”, she called over her shoulder. I quickly gathered my things in her wake, took a biscuit-to-go, and hurried to the garage where Alice was already waiting in a little vi car. I got in and she reversed in a flash, obviously in her element. Just as we turned the corner, however, we saw the bus swoosh past on the main road. “Damn!” she cried, but we didn’t turn back. Pedal to the floor, we chased after it. “What am I doing?” she said laughing as I quickly put on my seatbelt.
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