An older age colored by youth: the continuing significance of youth-generated cultural boundaries for Sixties affiliates

Abstract

This article uses 14 in-depth interviews with individuals who felt involved with and were young during what is commonly known as ‘the Sixties’ in America to explore the potential relevance of youth-generated boundaries for now even older age. Analyzed data are focused upon informants’ subjective identifications and life course understandings as among a specific, though highly relevant section of the first generation to have now lived more complete lives inside Western post-World War 2 cultural transformations, in which the experience of youth and passage to adulthood became reshaped for many. Interviews show a continued significance of youth-generated boundaries around aging, parent culture, and conventional adulthood informants attribute to the Sixties that influence how they conceptualize their current self, peers, and understand social generations generally. We argue our data extend recent research from youth (sub)cultural studies on how subjective youth cultural connections can configure eventual adulthoods to the latter phases of life. Generally, where we do detect youth-generated boundaries as shaping aspects of how sampled Sixties affiliates profess to be looking ahead to later life, findings suggest a complexified corresponding older age containing newer types of markings and subjective experiences might be emerging that merit empirical consideration beginning with this generation.