Toward critical narrativity stories of aging in contemporary social policy.

1. Introduction

1.1. Social policy as narrative

How does social policy, and the stories it tells, influence the spaces in which we might grow old?

There can be little doubt that narrativity, the use of a "story" metaphor, both as a research technique (Holstein & Gubrium, 2000; Kenyon, Ruth, & Mader, 1999) and as a technique for personal self-construction (McAdams, 1993; McLeod, 1997), is becoming increasingly popular both within and beyond Social Gerontology.

Part of the attractiveness of thinking in terms of stories, is the opening of a critical space between description and intention. It makes it much easier to sidestep social determinacy and take a stance toward positions that might otherwise present themselves as the only possible reality. This does not mean that such narratives should be taken lightly, however, especially when they exist in the public sphere of social policy. They have the power, it is argued, to shape behavior and expectation and, thus, considerable political energy is invested in their promotion and maintenance.

In the last 20 years, western social policy has seen significant shifts in its ideological base. There has been a move away from welfarism, which was found in its classic form in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand, toward market-based "mixed economies" of social care. Rationales and mechanisms were adopted from US and Canadian systems, which were themselves undergoing an intensification of these same trends. Methods such as case-management were

used, to "marketize" the unitary welfare state on the one hand, and manage the fragmentation of services and resources on the other. If such methods transform and mediate economic relations, they also influence the perception helping professionals and clients of services have of themselves. They become, to use a Foucaultian term, technologies of the self (Biggs & Powell, 2000).