1. Spaces of Age, Snowbirds
and the Gerontology of
Mobility
Written by: Stephen Katz
Presented by: Adam Edwards
2. Gerontology and Mobility
• Gerontology looks at problems of aging-in-time
and the social conditions of growing older.
• The Research is focused on when people retire
and the social roles, economic challenges, and
cohort experiences associated with retirement.
• This article looks at questions of where people
retire and how they create cultural spaces for
retirement.
3. Gerontology of Mobility
• Ideas about social
spaces (scapes, flows,
places) and global
transcultural citizens to
migrational and mobile
retirement cultures,
can be considered part
of a larger subfield we
can call the
“gerontology of
mobility.”
4. The Study
• This was a Qualitative study, involving pictures
and diary entries as research tools.
• Visual Gerontology is valuable yet
underdeveloped.
• Why is it valuable? Because it can challenge
the dominate negative images of aging and its
stereotypes.
5. Snowbirds and their Culture
• Snowbirds are part of
a migrational
intercultural world.
• It allows for Northern
Americans and
Canadians to spend
winter months in
warmer southern
states.
6.
7. Personal Identity of Snowbirds
• A person’s attachment over time to their
homes, neighbourhoods, parks, shopping
areas, schools, religious centres, restaurants,
and local points of community history are
important to their aging.
• Personal identity is constantly specialized
because people narrate the things and places
around them as part of their biographical
development.
8. Retirement Migration
• Global scapes, flows, and places create the
conditions under which global citizenries can
emerge, whereby people can “migrate from
one society to another,” “stay at least
temporarily with comparable rights as the
indigenous population,” and “return not as
stateless and within no significant loss of
rights.”
9. Retirement Community
• Retirement Communities
frame their spatial
characteristics and
affiliated retiree identities
through lifestyle and
leisure values, rather than
historical community and
social relationships.
10. The Journey of the Snowbirds
• Even from the point of flight take-off, the
snowbirds prepare for their migration by
“sheading” their winter clothing to reveal
summer clothing.
• Everyone is smiling. Aircraft passenger cabins
are thought to be a micro elderscape.
11. Charlotte County, Florida
• Established in 1921.
• Median age of residents is 52.1 with 32.9 per
cent aged 65 or older. This would indicate a
county of very few “young” residents.
• Residents are reported to be “happier and
healthier” than their peers back home.
• The social landscape is dominated by: resident-
owned retirement communities, financial, and
recreational organizations and health care
facilities and volunteer societies.
14. Retirement Communities
• Retirement communities, a.k.a. Continuing
Care Retirement Communities (CCRCs), are
mostly private and for those who live
independently but desire a range of leisure
activities and resident conveniences.
• CCRCs offer nursing and other care services
such as housekeeping.
15. Assisted Living Facilities
• A.k.a. (ALFs) are catered,
personal care homes that
range in size where
recreational activities,
meals, bathing and
routine daily needs are
provided.
• ALF’s are more care
oriented than CCRCs and
are more likely to include
residents with Alzheimer's
disease.
16. Nursing Homes
• The other variation of retirement residence.
These institutions are dedicated towards full-time
nursing care and facilities for a broad spectrum of
assistance.
• All options are costly are require strict physical
and income standards to qualify for financial
assistance, if it is possible.
• Florida has experienced insurance, financial, and
labour crisis's combining what critics call “ a long-
term-care storm.”
17. United Community
• Charlotte County is an experimental zone where
aging demographic forces converge to create new
spatial, mobile, and transcultural way of life.
• Canadian migrators can spend their winters in
this county while maintaining their homes in
Canada.
• An estimated 500,000 Canadians spend three
months or more In Florida, and 350,000 in other
Southern States.
18. The Experience of Sarasota
• Most shops cater to elderly
customers looking for good
deals, restaurants feature “early
bird” specials, and clothing
stores sell ample leisure wear
and comfort clothes, eliminating
fashion, elegance, sexiness and
creative expression of self.
• Feelings of depression and
loneliness from the illusion of an
“American Dream,” that may not
last long, or have ever existed.
19. Warm Mineral Springs
• The lake is believed to have youth-giving and
healing powers.
• There are apartments and resorts nearby to
accommodate people who visit the spring.
• Stories tell of the elderly who threw away their
canes or wheelchairs after bathing in the healing
spring.
• This is a traditional way of deal with aging in
opposition to anti-aging chemicals, surgery, diets
and antioxidants.
21. Warm Mineral Springs
• Original residences appear “quaint” and
“historic,” in comparison to the new asphalted
areas and golf courses, with alligators making a
rare appearance to remind us of what this place
once was.
• It is a largely white residence, served by mostly
non-white labourers.
22. Port Charlotte Cultural Center
• Part-time workers in grocery and drugstores
are older and retired but still working.
• One elderly worker comments how great it is
that the young and old work together here as:
“they have much to learn from the old.”
• Elders consider the Cultural Center as their
center not because it is for seniors but
because it was built by seniors for everyone in
the County.
25. • Races in Charlotte County, Florida:
• White Non-Hispanic Alone (87.3%)
• Black Non-Hispanic Alone (4.9%)
• Hispanic or Latino (4.8%)
• Two or more races (1.5%)
• Asian alone (1.0%)
• Read more: http://www.city-data.com/county/Charlotte_County-
FL.html#ixzz1pCftk6mY
26.
27. Cultural Centre
• The Cultural Centre is also a social magnet
that attracts regular public and media
attention, funding, community support and
renovation projects to Port Charlotte itself.
• The Center extends its importance within the
vibrant elder network throughout the county.
28. Cultural Centre
• The county is graced with a sacred feeling as volunteers greet
visitors with cold drinks, tours and the sense that this is a
special place, a micro-world operating on different terms
from larger society.
• “There's nothing like it anywhere in America.”
• “Miracles happen all the time here.”
• The volunteer pool is unrivaled because of their vast skill-sets
and talents.
29. Canadian Snowbird Association
• An advocacy organization that lobbies the
government on behalf of senior travellers,
provides accessible travel and health
insurance packages, and acts as a travel
information service.
• Also influences other agencies to focus on
snowbird oriented service.
30. Socio-spatial components of Snowbird
Culture
• There are three central socio-spatial
components of Canadian snowbird culture.
• First, the relation between migration and
permanent living arrangements, rather than a
dual distinction between a “here” and a
“there.”
• Seasonal migrants form the “middle ground of
the continuum” between permanent migrants
and vacationers.
31. Socio-spatial components of Snowbird
Culture
• Second, since most Canadian snowbirds are
middle class and financially independent, they
bring an intercultural prosperity through their
taxes, real estate, and consumer purchasing to
their Florida communities and host
economies.
32. Socio-spatial components of Snowbird
Culture
• Third, snowbirds form their own mobile
networks that attract other snowbirds.
• Mullins and Trucker found that Canadian
snowbirds “were nomadic in the sense that
their social ties were primarily with the same
migrants in the communities they shared at
both ends of the move.”
33. Maple Leaf Estate
• Energetic seniors, wearing crisp polo
shirts. An eerie feel of an island invaded
by senior aliens.
• Golf as a physical activity, but also an
important force in solidifying social
bonds.
• The members are a tightly knit
community that help each other raise
funds, mourn losses, regale in tales of war
and hardships, and enjoy their current life
as much as possible.
34. Concluding Thoughts
• The study has looked at the migrational worlds of
snowbirds. Living experiences are experimental in
mobile cultures, which challenge what it means
to grow old, also drawing connections between
consumer environments and new aging
identities.
35. Questions???
• Have you ever thought about travelling in old
age? Or would you prefer to stay in your
comfort zone, to a place you’ve narrated with
social experiences your entire life?
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR0QCvi1
Qqg&feature=related
