Conference “Age and Care Graz 2023. Aging in a Caring Society? Theories in Conversation”

20 to 22 September 2023, University of Graz

From September 20 to 22, the conference “Age and Care 2023: Aging in a Caring Society? Theories in Conversation” was held at the University of Graz. It was the inaugural conference of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Aging and Care (CIRAC) which is led by Ulla Kriebernegg, one of our project members. The aim of the conference was to bring ageing and care theories into conversation and to gain insight into international scholarship in the fields.

Certainly, we did not miss this chance and took part in the panel “Narratives and Representations of Aging and Care in Southeast Europe”.  At first, our team from the Hungarian Demographic Research Institute, consisting of Julia Boros, Attila Melegh, Judit Monostori and Orsolya Udvari, informed about demographic anxieties and gave a presentation with the title “Toward a Population Aging Panic? The Hungarian Case”. Afterwards, Galina Goncharova and Aurelia Borzin from the University of Sofia provided insights into their ongoing fieldwork and spoke on the topic “Caring Society ‘Under Construction?’ Post-Socialist Biographical Narratives of Care and Aging with Dignity in Bulgaria and Romania”. Finally, Dagmar Gramshammer-Hohl and Oana Hergenröther, whose research focusses on public discourses and demographic change in film, literature and art, talked about “Cultural Representations of Age and Care: Two Examples from Post-Socialist Southeastern Europe”.