Opportunities or Obligations? Civic Engagement and Older Adults

Promoters unwittingly reinforce ageist stereotypes, Last spring, Meredith Minkler and I presented our critical perspective on the promotion of civic engagement and older adults at the Joint Conference of the American Society on Aging and the National Council on Aging. With all the current enthusiasm and support for civic engagement initiatives among gerontologists, academics, and others working with or in behalf of older adults, I was surprised, pleased, and a bit curious that almost all the chairs in our presentation room were filled. Preparing for an audience that would not necessarily agree with our position, Meredith joked with the group about how we were grateful that the conference organizers had given us a room with two exit doors behind the podium, in case we needed to make a quick escape. I similarly began the presentation with a quote from Maggie Kuhn (1991) who, as the founder of the Gray Panthers, encouraged others to "Stand before the people you fear and speak the truth, even if your voice shakes" (p. 159). While I was not truly fearful of the audience, evoking Kuhn's words was a way to acknowledge our contrarian perspective and of inviting the group to contemplate our questions about the promotion of late-life civic engagement. I hoped to broaden the discussion, which had thus far remained fairly limited in its scope. Our concerns and critique resonated with many, including those who, like Meredith and me, are deeply involved in programs that support volunteerism among older adults. It is with their inspiration, and a desire to keep these critical questions on the table while the promotion of civic engagement moves ahead, that I write this essay. My goal here is not in any way to disparage civic engagement (which I define broadly to include not only formal volunteering, but also things like political activism, caregiving, and community organizing) for and by older adults. I firmly believe in the value of such activity, be it on the individual, community, or policy level. Rather, my intent here is to look more closely at the context in which this promotion of civic engagement has emerged and how the discourse around it affects and reflects meanings being constructed and experienced about aging. I use a critical approach to unpack some of the assumptions embedded in the civic engagement movement that have thus far been taken for granted. As the critical gerontologists Carroll Estes, Simon Biggs, and Chris Phillipson (2003) write, "a critical approach, then, sees 'common sense' about age as a starting point, not as an answer in itself" (p. 3). In the case of civic engagement, if it is "common sense" that such engagement is good for older adults and for society, it is important that we ask how that came to be and who decided it is true. From there, we can explore other important questions: For example, What assumptions are being made in the promotion of civic engagement about the roles older adults might or should play in society? What expectations are being created for older adults and internalized by them? What happens to those who cannot or do not fulfill these roles and expectations, who are they likely to be, and will they experience adverse consequences because they do not fit into these roles? What types of civic engagement are being promoted and what types are being played down? And finally, who is served by the promotion of these types of civic engagement? This article is a follow-up to previous work in which Meredith Minkler and I, as "loving critics," used a critical gerontology framework to explore the political and economic context in which the new emphasis on civic engagement is situated, the roles older adults are being encouraged to play as community volunteers within that context, and the possible exclusionary effect on older adults who do not play these roles (Martinson and Minkler, 2006). In this article, I again use a critical gerontology approach, with its overlapping perspectives from political economy and from the humanities, to more closely examine the potential impact of this burgeoning movement on images and perceptions of aging and of what it means to grow old. …