Not that old person: Older people’s responses to ageism revealed through digital storytelling

Abstract

One of the issues limiting prevention of elder abuse in Australia is lack of a strong evidence base to target social drivers of abuse, particularly ageism. This evidence gap is exacerbated by social discourses that perpetuate negative representations of older age as a time of vulnerability and physical decline, often in opposition to people’s actual experience of ageing. This article presents findings of the ‘OPERA Project’, which used co-designed digital storytelling to explore how ageing and ageism are perceived by older people. The project findings indicated that preventing elder abuse requires discursive intervention to combat negative social discourses representing older people, and to frame social acceptance of the inherent complexity of experiences of ageing. Using a social constructionist approach, this article puts forward a ‘middle path’ through traditional theories of ageing and associated ‘positive ageing’ discourses, which often problematise ageing itself.