Collective memory work with older men: Ageing, gender politics and masculinities

Over a thirteen-year period, between 2002 and 2015, we were part of what we now call the Older Men’s Memory Work Group (hereafter the group). During our final three years together, we also collaboratively produced and edited a collective book, Men’s Stories for a Change: Ageing Men Remember (Barber et al., 2016; also Blake et al., 2016, 2018) – though it should be said, at the outset, that this was not at all part of our initial agenda, with the idea only emerging late in the process. Memory work is work on memories, usually though not necessarily collective, and usually also focused on and about some agreed issue(s) of concern. In our case, these memories were about the making and unmaking of older men and masculinities through age, ageing, gender, gendering, and other intersections. Indeed, from the very beginning the group was part of a personal-political project of changing older men and masculinities against patriarchal and sexist ways and relations, and towards feminist and profeminist ways and relations. Here, in this contribution, we first describe the practicalities and the process of our memory work before placing the method itself in its broader framework, and considering its potential for working with older people, and specifically with older men, and with certain implications for practice.