This paper proposes bringing together work on the life-course and more-than-representational theories as one way to extend and complement current approaches to ageing research. Drawing on ethnographic research with older people in Manchester, UK, I argue that research on ageing should better foreground those less-tangible, temporal dynamics of experience which are often overlooked.

Representations of older age are often reductive in western societies, portrayed as a distinct period of life characterised by social disengagement and physiological decline. Through rich ethnographic accounts developed with older people from Greater Manchester UK, this paper is concerned with how the category of older age is made through representations, and the different ways people encounter and relate to it. In doing so, it disrupts reductive representations by considering how older age is lived. I respond to calls for the incorporation of more-than-representational and affective approaches into the geographic study of older age to advance research on ageing and highlight affect as a useful concept for thinking through difference. The paper is concerned with how older people are represented, with how representations differentially affect and are affected by older individuals, and with how representations of older age are performed and folded into lived accounts. More-than-representational theories offer an understanding of older age that is not pre-given or free-standing, but as something which can emerge, gather and disperse in relation with materialities as well as diffuse atmospheres, affects and emotional resonances.

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This paper focuses on "talking" methods, noting their wide application across the social sciences, and identifies potential spaces for innovation in this field.Drawing on interview material from the Methods for Change project, we argue that researching methods requires creative approaches to talk. With research methods as our focus, we draw on data collected from online interviews with 36 academics, which aimed to explore the transformative potential of social science research methods. We make three contributions. First, we consider challenges and potentials for talking about methods and communicating the transformative potential of social science methods to diverse audiences. Second, we elaborate on the detail of doing talking methods, identifying potential spaces for innovation. Third, we suggest there is value in supplementing interviews with creative techniques when talking with and about method. We highlight three such techniques used in our project as a means of eliciting conversation about the transformative potential of methods: how-to instructions; object interviewing; and methods as animals. The conceptual underpinnings, practical applications and obstacles encountered with each technique are discussed, including our own reflections on creative interviewing in a context where face-to-face research was restricted. In doing so, we respond to and advance recent debates about the need to talk more about the doing of talking methods. We argue that academics need to articulate why methods matter in creating change to global challenges, and that creative techniques can play a pivotal role.

This paper considers what silences might suggest during research conversations. Reflecting on an interaction in a café, I show how silences might be thought of as ‘interruptions’: important moments in which streams of experience are disrupted and when processes of sense making occur. Though there is no ‘one‐size‐fits‐all’ approach to how researchers should deal with silences, the skilled researcher might be one who recognises that what a silence is and how it should be dealt with depends upon context. Researchers need to think more about silences rather than removing these kinds of detail in favour of neat narratives.