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The relational making of people and place: the case of the Teignmouth World War II homefront

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 January 2016

GAVIN J. ANDREWS
GAVIN J. ANDREWS*
Affiliation:
Department of Health, Aging and Society, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada.
*
Address for correspondence: Gavin J. Andrews, Department of Health, Aging and Society, McMaster University, 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada E-mail: andrews@mcmaster.ca
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Abstract

Building on the pioneering research of a small number of gerontologists, this paper explores the rarely trodden common ground between the academic domains of social gerontology and modern history. Through empirical research it illustrates the complex networking that exists through space and time in the relational making of people and places. Indeed, the study focuses specifically on the lived reality and ongoing significance of life on the small-town British coastal homefront during World War II. Seventeen interviews with older residents of Teignmouth, Devon, United Kingdom, investigate two points in their lives: the ‘then’ (their historical experiences during this period) and the ‘then and now’ (how they continue to reverberate). In particular, their stories illustrate the relationalities that make each of these points. The first involves residents’ unique interactions during the war with structures and technologies (such as rules, bombs and barriers) and other people (such as soldiers and outsiders) which themselves were connected to wider historical, social, political and military networks. The second involves residents’ perceptions of their own and their town's wartime histories, how this gels or conflicts with public awareness, and how this history connects to their current lives. The paper closes with some thoughts on bringing together the past, present and older people in the same scholarship.

Keywords

social gerontologyoral historyplacerelationalitygeographical gerontology
Type
Articles
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 37 , Issue 4 , April 2017 , pp. 725 - 752
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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