Linking Ages - The Material-Discursive Practices of Un/Doing Age across the Life Course

年龄是一个关键的标志，极大地影响了一个人在我们的社会中如何对待。从社会学的角度来看，年龄界限可以被理解为实际的成就--不是人们是什么或做什么，而是通过物质话语的界限制定实践正在做的事情。最先进的研究已经研究了（物质）物体、空间和事物以及相关的（话语）表征-或dispositifs -的un/do年龄（ing），但面临着两个关键的限制：首先，它缺乏全面的理论事实，年龄，不像性别，是一个连续的，过程性的和动态的标记社会差异;其次，儿童、青年、成年和年龄研究之间缺乏对话，导致难以创造超越年龄界限的知识，并有可能使年龄类别具体化，而不是解构它们。为了缩小这些研究差距，这些项目旨在发展一种迫切需要的元视角，将年龄作为“联系年龄”框架中所体现的一类社会差异，将儿童、青年、成年和年龄研究的理论、方法和结果纳入对话。作为一种反思性的后结构主义方法，这样一个实践-理论框架的目的不是比较什么是生命阶段，而是比较它们是如何形成的--以及研究本身在这一过程中扮演的角色--问：年龄在不同的生命阶段是如何被取消/完成的？哪些物质话语实践在生命历程中划定了年龄界限？“链接时代”的框架将归纳建立从七个实证研究项目（一个博士后，四个博士项目，两个硕士项目）。所有涉及的项目都在问年龄是如何构成的，而不是为什么，并在这样做的过程中关注实践的选定物质元素-身体，事物或空间-以及相关的话语元素及其在规则和表现中的具体化。在这样做时，项目侧重于至少两个生命阶段，从第一个队列的童年和晚年开始，并将成年纳入第二个队列的分析。所有项目都部署了实践-理论的多方法研究设计，这些设计既考虑了材料因素，又考虑了话语因素，从而将联合收割机“材料”方法（例如民族志，人工制品分析）与文本方法（例如访谈，文件）相结合。在元层面上，小组领导人的项目分析研究本身通过显性和隐性知识实践在年龄的un/doings中发挥的作用。它汇集了所有子项目的调查结果，使用情景分析绘制它们，并在此基础上构成实践-理论“连接年龄”框架。

Age is one of the key markers that greatly influence how a person is treated in our societies. From a sociological perspective of un/doing age, age boundaries can be understood as practical accomplishments – not something people are or do, but something that is being done through material-discursive boundary-making practices. State-of-the-art research has studied the (material) bodies, spaces and things as well as the associated (discoursive) representations - or dispositifs – that un/do age(ing), but faces two crucial limitations: first, it lacks comprehensive theorising of the fact that age, unlike gender, is a continuous, processual and dynamic marker of social difference; and second, the absence of dialogue between childhood, youth, adulthood and age studies causes a struggle to create knowledge that exceeds age boundaries and risks reifying age categories instead of deconstructing them. To close these research gaps, the projects aims to develop such an urgently needed meta-perspective towards age as a category of social difference manifested in a framework of ‘Linking Ages’ to bring theories, methodologies and findings from childhood, youth, adulthood and age studies into a dialogue. As a reflexive poststructuralist approach such a practice-theoretical framework does not aim to compare what life stages are, but how they come into being – and which role research itself plays in that process -, asking: How is age being un/done in different life stages? Which material-discursive practices draw age boundaries across the life course?The ‘Linking Ages’ framework will be inductively established from seven empirical research projects (one postdoctoral, four PhD projects, two MA projects). All involved projects ask how, not why, age is constituted, and in doing so focus on selected materiel elements of practices – bodies, things or spaces – as well as the associated discursive elements and their materialisations in regulations and representations. In doing so projects focus on at least two life stages, starting with childhood and later life in the first cohort and include adulthood into the analyses of the second cohort. All projects deploy practice-theoretical multi-method research designs that account for both material and discursive elements and thus combine ‘material’ methods (e.g. ethnography, artefact analysis) with textual methods (e.g. interviews, documents). Located at a meta-level, the group leader’s project analyses the role that research itself plays in the un/doings of age through explicit and implicit knowledge practices. It brings together findings from all sub-projects, maps them using situational analysis, and, on this basis, constitutes the practice-theoretical ‘Linking Ages’ framework.