1. The dimension of future in old age:
promoting healthy and active aging with older
women in Portugal
Isabella Paoletti, CLUNL,
Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal

2. 2 The oldest old subgroup
 proportionally the fastest growing group
 Many older people underscore the time
they have left to live
 they often just hope for the time to go by
 old age category are associated to bad
health, decline, frailty etc.
 old age category attribution become often
self fulfilling prophecy

3. 3 The importance of a positive
sense of the future for older people
Berlin declaration on the quality of life for older adults”
reads:
“Solid evidence from decades of cognitive training
research has shown that there is enormous
plasticity of functioning—within biological limits.
Particularly, the ages between 60 and 80 offer a
late possibility to avoid or compensate normative
losses of functioning by intervention.”
(Fernandez-Ballesteros et al. 2009, 50).

4.  Physical and mental decline are not an
ineluctable destiny, there is space for
intervention.
 Mental and physical ability can be
retained and also recuperated.
 aging well is above all a right
 active and healthy aging also
contributes to a sustainable
development

5. 5 Sociolinguistic Studies on age
categorizations and identity work
 Different perceptions of oneself as an
older person involve considerable
differences in the definition of the person’s
possible sphere of action, and therefore, in
their life perspectives. (Coupland,
Coupland and Grainger, 1991; Paoletti,
1998)

6. Age membership categories
 Distancing from the category or denial of
aging, speakers project a positive personal
identity for themselves (Coupland and
Coupland, 1989).
 The association with the detrimental
characteristics of the category, are often
used to justify limitations (Coupland,
Coupland and Giles, 1989)

7. Age membership categories
 It is during concrete, ordinary occasions
that older people either get trapped in
stereotypic constructions that limit and
restrict themselves, or are able to skillfully
play with categories, producing a “space”
for positive self-images, announcing new
and exciting life perspectives

8. 4 The Project APSE:
“Aging, poverty and social exclusion: an
interdisciplinary study on innovative support
services”
 Data include:
 1)50 semi-structured interviews to social workers,
services coordinators, presidents of older people
associations, coordinators of civil societies initiatives;
 2) Ethnographic documentation of social intervention
involving older people, among them: “Atelier of self-
awareness on the topic of “future”
 3) relevant documents and legislation.

9. 9 Aim of the paper:
to describe the structure of the activity:
Atelier of self-awareness on the topic of
“future”
to show how the resistance to age
categorization is done by the
professional in the course of the
interaction in the Atelier

10. 10 The structure of the Atelier
 3 sessions:
 1) To understand the participants’ perspective
on their age (chronological age, physical age,
personal age, how many years are left?)
 2)To understand the projects, dreams, ideas
that were postponed along the years
 3) to discuss how they are going to spend the
years they have left to live

11. 6Transcript1:
1 P1 don’t you have anything you want [to ] achie[ve?
2 (P) [↑no]
3E [↑no I don’t have
4 anything to achieve I feel fulfilled (0.6)
5 C do you?=
6 P2 =[she fulf]illed her dreams
7 E [ ↑ I do!]
8 C nobody is completely [fulfilled]
9 P1 [she did]
10 E [two imp]eccable children two
11 daughters in law more or less so an impeccable
12 grand children oh dear I am as I should be (1.4)
13 P3 I feel complete (0.2)
14 E I feel complete yes certainly

12. 12 Transcript 2:
1C we have two solutions we stay there
2 ruminating on the fact that it is bad and it
3 is negative and of being alone and of
4 keeping being alone and of “I’ll keep
5 being alone until I die”
6 [ I am sad because I am alone
7P1[oh(.) it is most certainly so
8C (.) and I am sad because I am alone and
9 I am going to stay at home I don’t like to
10 talk to anybody” we can spend the rest
11 of seventy and how many years? (0.5)

13. 13 Transcript 2
13 P2 and one (0.4)
14 P3 seventy one (0.7)
15 (P) you are still young
18 C well (0.3) seventy one um there are people that- until
19 one hundred and twenty years[ms Amelia can live fifty
20 years more (0.4)
21 (P) [↑ i::!
22 (P) a[i shh
23 P4 [one hundred and twenty and um (.) good spare me]
24(P) [ my good
25 P5 ready for the woodworm (0.3) HE (.) ha ha ha ha ha ha
26 C you can keep mulling over this for fifty years
27 P3 how horrible
28 C mummified for fifty years (.) then you go to the cemetery
29 after being mummified ((general laugh))

14. 13 Transcript 3
1C [thirty years ↑are many] years
2P1 [100 and 100 and two ]
3P2 It is almost a life time (>ms<) doctor
4C <thirty [years> (0.5) <this perspecti]ve
5(P) [( ) also ( ) ]
6 C (0.6) listen (0.3) this perspective listen this perspective
7 of the thirty years (0.4) isn’t it? (0.3) You can mull about
8 it for thirty years (0.6) if you like (.) you have that option
9 (0.6) don’t you? (0.4) or you have another ↑option (0.4),
10 don’t you? (.) now I am here alone, I’d rather not to be
11 alone (0.5) what can I do about it? (1.0) right? (0.4)
12(P) home
13 P3 ↑you can go (dancing) (0.5)
14 P4 with (your/uncle) Elio
15 C you can get more friends more friends

15. 23 Conclusion
 It is important not to underscore the
power of categorization in order to defeat
ageism
 A sense of future and projects are an
important component of successful aging
 No active aging but purposeful aging
 The future in old age: a life plan after 60