The retirement village sector1 is one part of the increasingly marketized
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world. While critical researchers have examined organizational and residents'
representations of aging, retirement, and retirement communities in the context of
`the market', there is no research that examines communication related to
residents' enactment of participation within these settings with
respect to these processes of marketization. We aim to refine, complicate, and
extend what we might call `the marketization thesis' through this study that
examines resident participation within retirement communities. This essay is based
on a comparative examination of two major New Zealand retirement community
organizations. The rhetorical and critical discourse analysis reveals the complexity
of what `participation' means for the residents within the context of an institution
that is in transition from a medicalized to a marketized model of service delivery.
Through a close examination of these meanings, we offer new insights into issues of
individual action and freedom within the frame of a market-driven and avowedly
`customer-centred' organization and consequently suggest a reconsideration of
participation in organizations in which clients are also `insiders'.
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