Ethical Citizenship and Contested Notions of Aging During the COVID-19 State of Emergency in Latvia

Abstract

COVID-19 governance and its related forms of risk perception produced tensions between emergent and pre-existing understandings and practices of aging. This has resulted both in novel forms of biopolitical control and creative forms of resistance and practices of intergenerational care. This paper uses the concept of ethical citizenship to explain how older adults saw their role in the collective project of defeating COVID-19 despite partly being excluded from it. The research is based on a qualitative research-based learning project that was carried out in Latvia in 2020 at the time of the first pandemic- related state of emergency. We argue that the biopolitical approaches of successful aging and the designation of risk groups were ambiguously intertwined with the relational practices of aging while both processes were linked to the broader post-socialist socioeconomic context. We focus on care relations in the daily lives of older adults during the state of emergency to illustrate how the seemingly irrational opposition to state-imposed restrictions was the result of the socio-economic and relational realities of elderly people. We argue that the recognition of relations of mutual care and support is necessary to improve the lives of current and future older adults.