Ageing and Epistemic Injustice: On Age Relations and Exclusions of Older Persons in Digitalization Strategies in Romania and Sweden

Despite the transformative changes brought about by digitalization, little is known about how it contributes to age relations and the assumptions of demarcated age groups as epistemologically unproblematic and others as deviant. By making visible how older persons are represented in national digitalization strategies and the absence of measures to include them in the digital transformation, this paper contributes new knowledge about age relations and the mechanisms behind the marginalization of older persons in national digitalization policies.

The analyzed material consists of national digitization strategies from Romania and Sweden, two countries that are among the least and most digitized countries in Europe, respectively. The documents are from the period 2011-2022. The analyses are based on Bacchi's "What’s the problem represented to be- approach” (2009). The analyses highlight three key results: (1) A key goal in the two countries is to strengthen the countries position in international comparisons of digitalisation level. (2) Older people are seen as a homogeneous group and as a problem because they are not expected make use of digital opportunities. (3) Even though the issue of older people's lack of digital competence is seen as significant, there are no measures to address this exclusion.

The portrayal of older persons as an obstacle to the national digitalization goals, while simultaneously having no active measures in place to include them, and the absence of their own voices, can be understood as an expression of epistemic injustice; that is, older persons are not seen as reliable epistemological subjects.