A phenomenological study exploring experiences of civic participation among older African Americans and Latinx immigrants using an intersectional life course perspective
Creators: name: Reyes, Laurent
Publisher: name: No Publisher Supplied
Year: 2021

description: Background and aims: In the past 20 years, scholars, practitioners, and policy makers have expressed great interest and commitment to increasing older adults’ civic participation. Empirical research has found various health, economic, and social benefits for individuals who volunteer in later life and for society overall. However, there are major gaps in this literature, especially concerning civic participation among diverse populations of older adults in the U.S. First, few studies have explored civic participation beyond formal volunteerism and voting. Second, there is a dearth of literature examining the experiences of civic participation among non-White older adults, particularly African Americans and Latinx immigrants, who will constitute the largest non-White groups of older adults by 2030. Finally, the literature has failed to account for the socio-political context and structures of oppression that shape experiences of civic participation. Guided by intersectional life course theory to attend to these gaps, I set out to examine the research questions, “How do Latinx and African American older adults experience civic participation throughout the life course in the context of intersectional identities (i.e., race/ethnicity, age, gender, culture) and major life transitions (i.e., acquiring chronic health problem, immigration)?”; and “How are these experiences similar or different between African Americans and Latinx older adults?” Methods: I conducted a phenomenological study with 17 African Americans and Latinx adults (ages 60 and older) living in New Jersey and New York. Each participant engaged in an in-depth interview, followed by an optional document elicitation, then an oral history interview to explore experiences of civic participation across their life course. I drew from intersectional life course perspective and hermeneutic phenomenology to guide the design and analysis and to contextualize participants’ experience across the life course and within historical and the current socio-political space in which they live and participate. All data was collected, transcribed, and uploaded into Nvivo12. Data were bilingual (Spanish/English) and not translated for analysis. To analyze results, I first crafted narratives from the two interviews—a process of developing narratives from transcripts to gain a deeper understanding of the phenomenon. In this case, it also helped to organize experiences across life stages and track the progression of the phenomenon alongside age, politics, and major life experiences (immigration, death, pandemics, illness diagnosis, etc.). This analytical process was complemented by an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), which prioritizes (a) diversity of lived experience, (b) context, and (c) relationship to life narratives. Results: Four themes emerged that provide a nuanced understanding of experiences of civic participation among older African Americans and Latinx immigrants. The first theme, geopolitical and socio-historical context, situates when, how, and why participants began to participate; how their participation developed across their lives and within community, social structures, culture, and politics; and how such systems produce the context for these activities to emerge. The second theme, the role of age/ageism, health/illness stigma, and race/racism in civic participation shows how interaction across social categories and systems of oppression affect participants’ decision of how, where, and with whom to engage in civic activities. The third theme, agency and resistance, demonstrates how African American and Latinx adults develop their own opportunities and capacity for civic participation in the context of hostile and neglectful social structures and governance. The final theme, linked lives, captures the values of compassion and connectedness. This theme reveals how social, cultural, and religious systems influence individuals' sense of interconnectedness, allowing them to engage across generations, international borders, and history. Discussion: This dissertation contributes new insights on the multidimensionality of civic participation, including dimensions of spirituality, solidarity, survival, and empowerment. In addition, it presents evidence on the dynamics and experiences of civic participation across the life course in the context of geopolitical and socio-historical contexts. It also presents an opportunity to question processes of inclusion in “civic” participation among historically excluded populations, whose citizenship has, and continues to be, in question. Furthermore, this dissertation provides an example of the application of methodological and theoretical approaches that are underutilized in later life civic participation research and that have great potential for contributing to anti-oppressive research with marginalized populations. In addition, this theoretical and methodological approach gave way to results that demonstrate the richness, complexity, and essence of civic participation in the spectrum of time and space. Findings from this study could improve conceptualizations and measurements of civic participation for future studies, policy, and social and health initiatives. Particularly, it further demonstrates the grave limitations of predominant social gerontological frameworks on later life civic participation (e.g., productive aging) and calls for re-conceptualizing civic participation in ways that center the lived experiences and historical socio-political struggles of ethnoracially underrepresented populations.