Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Department of Adult Educational Sciences, Pleinlaan 5, 1090 Brussels, Belgium; Erasmus University of Applied Sciences Brussels, Department of Media, Management and Society, Zespenningenstraat 70, 1000 Brussels, Belgium.
Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Department of Adult Educational Sciences, Pleinlaan 5, 1090 Brussels, Belgium; Erasmus University of Applied Sciences Brussels, Department of Health Care and Landscape Architecture, Laarbeeklaan 121, 1090 Brussels, Belgium.
J Aging Stud. 2021 Mar;56:100909. doi: 10.1016/j.jaging.2020.100909. Epub 2020 Nov 28.
Population aging and international migration are two of the most critical social trends shaping the world today. As a result, scholars across the globe have begun to investigate how to better incorporate ethnicity into gerontological research. The integration of insights from life-course theory, post-colonial, and feminist theories have resulted in valuable attempts to tackle issues related to ethnicity and old age. Inspired by these bodies of research, this paper explores how decolonial perspectives can strengthen social gerontological research at the intersection of ethnicity and old age. This theoretical paper advances four key insights drawn from decolonial perspectives that expose some current blind spots in gerontological research at the intersection of aging and ethnicity. Through a process of awareness and resistance decolonial perspectives reveal that: 1) colonial thinking is deeply embedded in research; 2) critical reflection about who is considered the "knower" in research is warranted; 3) alternative ways to generate, analyze, and publish knowledge exist; and 4) the places and systems of knowledge production are not neutral. To address these issues empirically, decolonial frameworks call us to actions that include decolonizing the conceptual underpinnings of the research enterprise, scholars themselves, research-in-action (through "epistemic disobedience"), and current knowledge systems and structures that reflect and reinforce colonialism. Potential applications of these insights are explored, but acknowledged as an essential first step on a nascent path. This paper concludes by arguing that decolonial perspectives offer a more genuine gaze by demanding nuanced reflections of contemporary realities aging persons embodying the intersection of aging and ethnicity, like racialized older migrants and ethnic minorities, while simultaneously revealing how historically-rooted power hierarchies that are often invisible constrain their aging experiences.
人口老龄化和国际移民是当今世界塑造的两个最关键的社会趋势。因此，全球学者开始研究如何将族裔因素更好地纳入老年学研究中。将生命历程理论、后殖民理论和女性主义理论的观点相结合，为解决与族裔和老年有关的问题做出了有价值的尝试。受这些研究成果的启发，本文探讨了如何用去殖民化视角来加强族裔与老年交叉领域的社会老年学研究。这篇理论论文提出了从去殖民化视角得出的四个关键见解，这些见解揭示了老年学研究在老龄化和族裔交叉领域中的一些当前盲点。通过意识和抵制的过程，去殖民化视角揭示了：1）殖民思维深深地嵌入在研究中；2）对谁被认为是研究中的“知者”进行批判性反思是有必要的；3）存在生成、分析和发表知识的替代方法；4）知识生产的场所和系统并不中立。为了从经验上解决这些问题，去殖民化框架呼吁我们采取行动，包括使研究企业、学者本身、行动中的研究（通过“知识上的不服从”）以及反映和强化殖民主义的现有知识系统和结构去殖民化。这些见解的潜在应用被探讨，但被认为是一个新兴道路上的必要的第一步。本文最后认为，去殖民化视角通过要求对体现老龄化和族裔交叉的当代现实进行细致入微的反思，为老龄化人口提供了更真实的视角，例如，种族化的老年移民和少数民族，同时揭示了历史根源的权力等级制度如何经常限制他们的老龄化体验，而这些权力等级制度往往是无形的。
