Guest Editorial: “Examining Ageing and Care Through an Intersectional-Sensitive Lens”
by Stefan Schweigler, Anna-Christina Kainradl, Helen Kohlen, Ulla Kriebernegg, Eva-Maria Trinkaus
Ageing in a Caring Society: How Power Dynamics Intersect
This special issue stems from the work of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Ageing and Care (CIRAC), founded in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic at the University of Graz in Austria. Its inaugural conference, which took place in 2023, led to this publication, which is also inspired by one of the Centre’s first projects, “Gender Matters: Ageing, Care, and Migration”, within the framework of the Elisabeth List Fellowship Programme for Gender Studies. Elisabeth List’s feminist philosophical legacy—including her emphasis on embodied thinking and the intertwining of knowledge, power and lived experience—forms the foundation for the critical perspectives brought together in this special issue. CIRAC builds on this tradition by addressing socially relevant questions concerning ageing, old age and cultures of care through critically informed research, education and community engagement.
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“Researching the Agency of Older Migrant Women: The Potential of Intersectional Approaches”
by Anna-Christina Kainradl, Brigitte Kukovetz, Annette Sprung
This paper explores the agency of older migrant women using intersectional approaches. It provides an overview of existing research on the migration-ageing nexus within the social sciences. Building on this, it highlights the need to focus on the multifaceted challenges and potentials faced by older migrant women, taking into account the intersectional dynamics of gender, migration and age. The concept of intersectionality is discussed in relation to how it sheds light on the discriminatory experiences and agency of older migrant women. Placing the concept of agency at the centre, the article highlights the importance of understanding agency from a gender, migrant and ageing perspective. Finally, it argues for a broader understanding of agency that takes into account intersecting categories and diverse forms of expression.