‘The point isn't that we're old, but that we're the founders’: A generational perspective on older adults' protest participation

Abstract

A generational perspective is effective in exploring older adults' social participation, yet it has rarely been employed to examine their political engagement. To explore the potential role of generational affiliation in later-life protest participation, we employed Mannheim's generational framework to investigate older Israelis' massive participation in the 2023 social protest. Through four focus-group interviews, comprising 27 Israeli Jews regularly participating in the protest, we scrutinised participation motivations, experiences, and the meanings attributed to their age concerning participation. A framework analysis identified four themes: 1) Participants recounted a narrative of participation that positioned their protest as linking their past contributions to Israel's founding and existence, to the future, represented by their offspring. This narrative, based on participants' self-identification as the founding generation, provided a sense of generativity, stemming from their efforts to protect the legacy they leave for future generations. 2) Participation experience intertwined a sense of generational belonging, establishing participants' collective identity as founders, and intergenerational belonging, representing their desire to belong to the state they built, thereby resisting their ageist marginalization. 3) Participants' self-depiction as the ‘tribal elders,’ guiding and supporting younger protesters, was intertwined with being ‘the founders,’ permitting them to acknowledge age-related limitations in the protest without being considered ‘ordinary’ old people. 4) Participants neutralised age as relevant in their protest, corresponding with their mythic founders' status. Our study demonstrates the merits of a generational perspective in identifying further layers of meaning in older people's political participation. Its employment can enrich understanding of past findings and generate future insights regarding this growing phenomenon.