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International Journal of
Population Studies Australia’s Knitting Nannas lifelong learning

networks,” engaged in “conflictual relations with clearly Grannies’ “strategic deployment” (Sawchuk, 2009, p. 173)
identified opponents” over significant time periods, thus of the grandmother identity is disarming and efficacious.
becoming a collective force (Della Porta & Diani, 2006, Police were reluctant to move them on or arrest them,
p. 20-25). as they found it easier to get their message across using
The process of social movement germination is itself humor and parodying the image of essentialized older
a CoP in identity generation rather than merely a place women (Sawchuk, 2009, p. 180-181). The Grannies have
of integration and adaptation. Eventually, as a movement used strategic essentialism and humorous performative
grows, it is likely to take on the need for enculturation activism as their identity brand to engage and educate
processes or identity reproduction (Della Porta & Diani, audiences in understanding a myriad of issues, including
2006, p. 105-113; Lave & Wenger, 1991;). The consciousness- the toxic impacts of CSG. In Ecuador, antimining women
raising groups of the 1970s women’s liberation movement drew on their Pachamama (Mother Earth Inca goddess)
are considered a form of CoP in which women shared mythology to “present a more cohesive identity and
personal experiences, leading to a transformative collective narrative around their activism.” (Jenkins, 2015, p. 453).
understanding of patriarchal power structures in society 2. Methods
(Curnow, 2013, p. 839).
2.1. Researcher positionality
There is limited research into older women’s
environmental activism and learning, with Canada’s This inquiry was framed within the context of post-
Raging Grannies being an exception. Much literature structuralist feminist research. Inspired by Haug’s
exists on the Raging Grannies in relation to their role as “feminist social constructionist method” (Onyx & Small,
social change agents, educating others, and countering 2001 p. 775), my research cast the researcher and subjects
ageist sexism (Caissie, 2006; McHugh, 2012; Pedersen, as equal “coresearchers,” drawing on everyday experience
2010; Roy, 2003; 2007; Sawchuk, 2009, 2013; Schmitz, as a valid process of knowledge creation. Davies & Gannon
2009). Only one scholar, Narushima (2004), has researched (2005, p. 315) describe this approach as demonstrating
the implications for later-life learning of older women’s respect for the other through “post-structural ethics”
social activism within this movement. Narushima and “mutual embeddedness in discourse and relations of
(2004) concludes that the “social and collective learning power.” The researcher is thus obliged to understand both
environment” enabled significant personal benefits, such the subjects and herself as they grow and change. Therefore,
as “self-help, self-acceptance, liberation, and the realization the methodology involved planning for both proposed
of their capacity to become an agent for change.” The and emergent aspects. Learnings from field observation,
women experienced ongoing self-actualization in later ongoing review of new research, and data analyses were
life, along with “creativity, critical thinking, a sense of self- incorporated into other phases.
liberation, and well-being in late adulthood” (Narushima Social movement research has often failed to sufficiently
[2004], pp. 38-41). address gender and activism (Maddison & Shaw, 2014).
A common thread of women’s environmental activism The inexplicable interstices, glaring silences, and omissions
is strategic essentialism. Essentialism refers to the practice in SML research are explained by a feminist theory, which
of assuming that the nature of things is fixed rather challenges the rationalist presumption that knowledge
than culturally defined. Women are often essentialized production is “value neutral,” instead recognizing that
as being close to nature, depicted as earth mothers and “knowledge and the production of knowledge are inherently
nurturers, and therefore more likely to be concerned gendered” (Maddison & Shaw, 2014, p. 417). This perspective
with environmental issues and planetary well-being enables feminist researchers to represent human diversity by
(Bartlett, 2013; Murray, 2010). However, this portrayal is developing research methods “designed to reveal the gender
“descriptively false in that it denies the real diversity of problematic through prioritizing women’s lived experience
women’s lives and social situations” (Stone, 2004, p. 142). of the social telling in their own voice” (Byrne & Lentin,
Sexism and ageism are examples of the negative effects of 2000, in Maddison & Shaw, 2014, p. 416).
essentializing (McHugh, 2012). A transdisciplinary approach was deemed necessary
While numerous feminist scholars look at the to integrate the complexity, interdependence, and
intersection of motherhood and activism, fewer have intersections of multiple disciplines (Nicolescu, 2014).
extended this analysis to include grandmotherhood and This approach encompassed various fields, including social
activism (Chazan & Baldwin, 2016; Chazan & Kittmer, movement theory, adult learning theory, environmental
2016). Sawchuk (2009) critiques the ageist and sexist education, gender, critical feminist geragogy, media
narratives of grandmotherhood; finding the Raging studies, environmental climate activism, and craftivism.

Volume 10 Issue 2 (2024) 5 https://doi.org/10.36922/ijps.381