The Influence of Ethnic and Cultural Diversity on Women's Embodied Experiences of Ageing

Within social gerontology and the sociology of ageing, there has been a tendency to focus on ageing as a period characterised by adaptation, consumption, and the commodification of the body (e.g. Biggs, 1997; Featherstone and Hepworth, 1996). This work has highlighted the extent to which an ageing appearance might impact on the formation of identity and self. However, a limitation of this focus is a lack of attention to the significance of ethnic and cultural diversity on how ageing is experienced and embodied. An argument of this paper is that such approaches tend to overlook the complex meaning’s attached to ageing for women and how these are often bound up with past, current, and future ethnic and cultural belief systems and values. Based on qualitative research with women (aged 36-60) from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds, this paper seeks to examine the different meanings women attach to ageing. It
considers the extent to which current theories of ageing are able to explain those experiences of women that are not
structured around perceived Western concerns and priorities.