D RIVING AND GPS

Limited mobility can be partly overcome by technological devices enabling elders to still access products and services they need (Liu and Park 2003:264). Technology can assist older people to stay mobile by keeping them driving their own cars and helping them access other means of transportation, a process which can be as cognitively demanding as driving; both are important because mobility is fundamentally linked to the wellbeing of older adults (2003:274). Interestingly some of the modifications that older drivers make to their driving habits as they perceive their abilities decline, such

37

as driving more slowly, less frequently, avoiding driving during peak hours, at night, and in the rain, are reflected in senior movanners’ behaviour in order to reduce the risks of hurting themselves or other road users. They try to be off the road and parked up by 4pm. This is not only to make the most of the spot they have chosen by taking walks, swimming and socialising with other campers, but also to be secure in a place before it is too dark to see well, and to be off the road before the light has faded to dusk which may affect their vision. They also drive at a measured speed; most told me they never drive over 100k (even though their vans may be capable of doing this) to reduce the risks of road accidents and because they are often driving in unfamiliar regions. They have the ability to avoid bad weather conditions such as heavy rain or high winds by simply staying put, or if they are mobile, pulling off the road for an unscheduled stay.

One of my key informants has just purchased a navigating device, and the other is in the process of doing so. Because driving is a combination of skills involving

judgement, perception, speed of decision-making and multi-tasking, problems senior drivers encounter due to declines in speed of processing information and changes to working memory, can make driving and navigating increasingly difficult (Liu and Park 2003:275-276). There is evidence that driver training for elders can reverse problems with visual attention and that navigational devices can help with wayfinding

(2003:276). The main problem associated with wayfinding is that it is a sequential process of steps and when one step is missed, it then destroys the success of the whole process (2003:276). This affects senior movanners more than the general older population of drivers, because they are usually in unfamiliar territory and if they miss a turn they are forced to multi-task; drive their motor home while trying to follow street signs, traffic signals or glance at a map at the same time (2003:276). The added difficulty of turning a large motor home around if they do happen to make a wrong turn should not be underestimated.

Movanners in general view technologies positively: they aid their leisure, allowing them freedom and at the same time participation in a community of likeminded people. I observed the everyday dynamic interaction between the older person and technology

38

and listened to their conversations with each other which often involved talking about technology related to their vans and communications on the road. Technology uptake and mobility, as well as being two of the pillars of this thesis, also intersect in the research process of most mobility studies. I have found their convergence created different types of engagement with subjects. This discussion is next, in the Methodology chapter.

22.5

S

In the mobilities turn, being on the move is entangled with contemporary technologies; they are connected in the literature and in turn their intersection creates the

connectedness which characterises people on the move in the 21st century. Older

people in western society are not often the subjects of research in connection with ‘cool’ technologies that add real freedom and independence to their lives; more often the technologies they are encouraged to learn and use (and are researched on) are those of decline and immobility, helping them age-in-place. To understand how technology is being used by senior movanners to enjoy a mobile lifestyle celebrating freedom and independence in older age, I have chosen to look through the windscreen of the ‘mobilities turn’ to view the inherent meanings, connections and power plays of such a life.

It is important to remember interest in mobility is not new and anthropologists

especially have long studied nomadic peoples and been interested in routes as well as the rootedness of the people they studied. However the emerging thinking of the new mobilities turn enables connections to be made between ageing mobile people and their uptake of technology and how it contributes to ageing wellbeing in New Zealand. By focusing on the meanings of getting from A to B and the social aspects encountered along the way, rather than the destination of such journeys, and incorporating how movanners are using technologies to achieve successful lives on the move, I hope to add to the collection of mobilities studies. Elderly people are not often the focus of mobility studies of ‘cool’ technology like mobile phones (Castells 2006:40) and GPS devices which hold possibilities of adding freedom and independence to their lives. Greenblatt, Kellerman, Urry, Cresswell and others have called for mobility to be studied

39

with the emphasis on the cultural and social, and the parameters they endorse to guide such studies also happen to highlight examples of components necessary for ageing wellbeing. Therefore a serendipitous synergy between the two frameworks emerges, such as ‘engagement with life’ (Rowe and Kahn 1998:39-46) occurring in the “physical zones of exchange and contact” (Greenblatt 2010b:250-252) when mobile.

Where the literature on mobilities, ageing wellbeing and technology use of the aged overlaps, it has assisted the aims of this study which are to investigate whether senior movanners are creating a social ‘roadland’ by their day-to-day practices and how they are interacting with family members while living a mobile old age. Their use of

technology incorporated in high-tech vehicles which enables the life they want to lead theorised through the centrality of ‘mobilities’ defines the scope of this project. The literature has reinforced both the importance of wellbeing in old age, but also the difficulty of measuring this concept. It has focussed on new technologies with potential to help with successful mobility, but often instead symbolises the relentless

hypermobility of the modern age, which sometimes leaves older people feeling literally, corporeally, emotionally and virtually ‘left behind’. I will turn now to the methods I used to understand the technology-driven, ageing Argonauts of Aotearoa as they drove the movanner archipelago.

40

CCHAPTER 3

METHODOLOGY