Representations of older age are often reductive in western societies, portrayed as a distinct period of life characterised by social disengagement and physiological decline. Through rich ethnographic accounts developed with older people from Greater Manchester UK, this paper is concerned with how the category of older age is made through representations, and the different ways people encounter and relate to it. In doing so, it disrupts reductive representations by considering how older age is lived. I respond to calls for the incorporation of more-than-representational and affective approaches into the geographic study of older age to advance research on ageing and highlight affect as a useful concept for thinking through difference. The paper is concerned with how older people are represented, with how representations differentially affect and are affected by older individuals, and with how representations of older age are performed and folded into lived accounts. More-than-representational theories offer an understanding of older age that is not pre-given or free-standing, but as something which can emerge, gather and disperse in relation with materialities as well as diffuse atmospheres, affects and emotional resonances.

在西方社会，老年的表现往往是简化的，被描绘成一个以社会脱离和生理衰退为特征的独特生命时期。通过与英国大曼彻斯特的老年人一起开发的丰富的人种学帐户，本文关注如何通过表征来划分老年人的类别，以及人们遇到和与之相关的不同方式。在这样做时，它通过考虑老年人的生活方式来破坏还原性表示。我响应呼吁将超越代表性和情感的方法纳入老年地理研究，以推进对衰老的研究，并突出情感作为通过差异思考的有用概念。这篇论文关注的是老年人的代表方式，表现如何对老年人产生不同的影响和受到他们的影响，以及老年人的表现如何被执行和折叠到真实账户中。超越代表性的理论提供了对老年的理解，它不是预先给定的或独立的，而是可以随着物质以及弥漫的气氛、情感和情感共鸣而出现、聚集和分散的东西。