Care and Power in the Lives of Ageing Men As Narratives of Unbearable Lightness

The choice, resources, and status mark approaches to care, including self-care, in the narratives collected in a qualitative study targeting aging men. Based on fieldwork in several social environments (marginalized as well as privileged) in the Czech Republic, the paper opens a broader discussion on the appropriation of care as well as on the abundance or lack of symbolic recognition of care practiced and provided by men. The "ease" of appropriating some care contrasts with practices of distancing from it as well as with some care being labeled as mere help. The analytical focus is on such a "lightness of caring" in contrast with "the unbearable" accounts of some of the aspects of the ageing process, and on intersections of both. This presentation uses interpretations of transcripts of interviews with men situated in privileged status positions within the social hierarchy. It addresses ageing and masculinity as gendered categories and processes and is informed by CSMM (Critical studies on men and masculinities) approach. It elaborates and critically reflects on how these men experience social relations of care.