ABSTRACT
In what ways do an ethnographer’s demographic and cultural similarities to informants matter? Debates on this topic have focused primarily on the role of race and gender in conducting research. Must one be a member of the targeted group in order to gain productive rapport and to establish trust? To explore the relations between the fieldworker and those being examined, I focus on the role of age in ethnography. I describe my immersion in an organization of senior citizen progressive activists, observed during my late sixties, a time that I was a generational peer. Most ethnography has been conducted by younger scholars, even studies of senior citizens. However, when analyzing senior worlds, this often creates the ethnographic role as child or grandchild, rather than peer: a chronological outsider. In this research, conducted with a progressive political group that I label Chicago Seniors Together, the CST was staffed by younger women, trained in community organizing. While my relationship with the members was as an equal, gaining easy camaraderie, the staff were more skeptical of my role as my age did not overwhelm the reality that I was an outsider to the movement.
