Meanings of Eldership in the Urban Native American Community in the Greater Boston Area

Meanings of Eldership in the Urban Native American Community in the Greater Boston Area

Indigenous peoples

Soubhana Asif

2020

Boston University

Dissertation

English

Boston, Massachusetts

Restricted Access

This qualitative research study explores the meanings of Eldership and eldering in a local urban Native American community in the Greater Boston Area. Studies regarding older Native Americans often use “older adult” and “elder” synonymously. By relegating aging to simply a “chronological pace,” researchers assume that Native communities view time and the transition into elderhood as an independent physiological experience, when alternative understandings may exist. Urban Native Americans may not have ties to the land they live on, are separated from the culture and traditions of their tribal members on reservations, and are consumed by the dominating modality of their colonizer. However, an urban Native community continues to exist in the Greater Boston Area in Massachusetts. This in part is due to the persistent efforts of elders within the community over time who elder-in-place: they maintain networks and pass down knowledge to younger generations within a co-constructed shared space.

Kristen Walker