From active to activist ageing: conceptualising older adults’ activism in India and Finland

Climate and environmental crises are threatening older adults’ health globally. However, while older adults are vulnerable to the impacts of the climate crisis, they can also be resilient and may, among other things, exercise their influence through activism. In this conceptual article, we first argue that it is important to study older adults’ activism concerning the climate and environmental crisis, then identify possible theoretical perspectives to use in doing so, and lastly highlight some examples of activism in two very different countries, India and Finland. We argue that besides acknowledging activism as something that individuals (choose to) do, it is important to pay attention to relational, communitarian and collective modes of activism. We further argue that discussion on older adults’ activism and their possibilities to take stands and influence socioecological issues calls for, and has potential to contribute to, global solidarity, dialogue and learning across differences. However, this requires willingness and humility to learn from intersectionalities of discrimination and power across and between societies as starting points, and of overall structural conditions for older adults’ activism.