Learning in longevity: a critical ecosystemic approach to research and intervention

Longevity entails specific learning for older adults, that is addressed by changing philosophies (Hachem, 2023). A new transformation of perspectives (Formenti & West, 2018) is here invoked, endorsing a critical ecosystemic model (Braithwaite et al., 2017; Hynes et al. 2020) that connects individuals, families, collectivities, professionals and policy makers in an effort to enhance the capacity of our society to guarantee justice, well-being, and meaning to all its citizens. Lifelong and long-life learning (Whitnall, 2011) receive new inputs from research and intervention with complex systems (Axelrod & Cohen, 2000; Morin, 2008; Formenti, 2018), showing how interactions shape the emergence of shared knowledge and decision making, integrated care, and effective coping, at a micro, meso and macro-level. Older citizens’ embodied and biographical experience (Formenti, West, & Horsdal, 2014) couples with changes in the proximal system, family, and convoys of care (Keating et al., 2019; Kemp et al., 2013), where individuals of all ages inter-act and contribute as valuable resources and caregivers. Interdependence, circularity and self-organization characterize learning as a cross-cutting process involving care givers and receivers, family members, health professionals, local administrators and designers of tools and services. These complex learning processes – with positive as well as undesired outcomes - can be named and transformed by the actors and organizations involved, to overcome hidden ageism reducing the complexity of a person to vulnerability and disability (a “patient”), or consumerism (a “service consumer”). Or to highlight intersectionality: being a woman, or family caregiver (the “burden” of care), having lower income, a history of migration, low technological competence/access or poor health literacy, are all predictors of marginalization and discrimination. Research on the systems of care (formal, informal and technology mediated) shows the complexity of the involved processes, revealing the lights and shadows of the national agenda for active ageing and the gaps that hinder older citizen’s agency, possibilities, and access to services. Care is also about empowerment, recognition and slowing down, to learn and develop coping strategy not aligned to the normative discursive frameworks of the neoliberal society. Caring about oneself, the others and the environment entails awareness that longevity is becoming a main structuring feature of society needing new creative answers. Critical systemic research on learning and education in longevity may open new possibilities towards transforming the dominant paradigm in ways that are more respectful of freedom, equality, meaning, and wisdom. An interdisciplinary research project within the framework of PNRR Age-It program (Spoke 10/WP5) involves researchers from education, social gerontology, family sociology, economy and technology, using narrative and participatory methods to highlight transformative patterns in three local communities/territories. A critical ecosystemic model will be implemented in doing fieldwork to explore lived experience, expose local pockets of social injustice, and celebrate co-evolutionary patterns of care and learning, for example in couples (Berg & Upchurch, 2007; Revenson, 2005), families, and informal groups, beyond mere answers to health issues, to impact relationships, social engagement, and the collective construction of meaning and value.