Generativity in deprived urban contexts? Older Adults’ experiences in slums in Mumbai, Nairobi, and among Haitian immigrants in New York

Societies around the world are growing older rapidly, though this change is more advanced in industrialized countries than in low and middle-income nations. There is evidence from research that older adults, if they have the requisite capacity and opportunities, will engage with, and seek to support, younger generations and that such engagement will enhance capabilities of the young and well-being of the old.

However, this research on the “generativity” of older adults has been based largely in industrialized societies. Our proposal requests a planning grant to shift the grounds of this thinking in two ways, by adopting a more ‘inclusive’ group based and context specific approach. We will interrogate the notion of ‘generativity’ in three different and ethnically diverse urban contexts, including specific slums in Nairobi, Mumbai, and among Haitian immigrants in Brooklyn. In this way our project will contribute to focusing scholarly attention on knowledge production on aging and also contribute to framing new categories and protocols for testing theories and practices in the global South. The Columbia Global Centers in Mumbai and Nairobi will guide this thinking and advise on the state of the field, and our longstanding colleague Isabella Aboderin PhD and the APHRC based in Nairobi will help us to further specify the variations on generativity. We aim to convene collaborative consultations with scholars and stakeholders, to develop teaching modules, and will provide a full study design to submit for federal and international funding.