Photographic Memory, Ageing and the Life Course

Abstract

ABSTRACTAlthough photographs are frequently used to illustrate discussions about ageing they have not been assessed critically as gerontological sources. This paper argues that the pictorial record since the 1840s contains many problems and possibilities. A case study of Victorian Scotland indicates the methodological pitfalls of acknowledging images at face value. Uncritical acceptance of the assumptions of modernisation theory has underlain much of the received wisdom on ageing in former times. More generally, both academics and advocates in Postwar Britain have reworked stereotypes of old age to suit their own aims. Against this, the convergence of reminiscence and a willingness to develop more interactive approaches to understanding the life course allows photographs to provide a resource for interpreting the ageing self. Nevertheless, as the examples show, difficulties again arise as the ambiguity and malleability of images all too easily enables generalised fictions to shroud the diversity of individual experience.