ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how age was “scripted” into the design of the City of Montreal’s 2018 public consultation on age-friendly cities, which took place from January to March 2018. As we argue, both the communication strategies and the processes did not facilitate the inclusion of older adults during the consultation, undermining the end goal of the consultation – the creation of an age-friendly city. Notably, the heavy reliance by government officials on online forms of communication excluded significant numbers of older Montrealers, particularly those living in situations of socio-economic precarity who find online access unaffordable. In addition to analysing this event as a “conjunctural moment”, we outline some of the tactics developed by activists to challenge the city’s consultation procedures. Our analysis of this local case brings STS research on age and ageing into conversation with a cultural studies approach to the study of ageing and technology.
