Abstract

Research on migrants’ civic engagement has tended to solely rely on academic definitions of this term instead of exploring how migrants themselves make sense of civic engagement in general or their own engagement in particular. This presentation taps into both of these knowledge gaps by bringing attention to the meaning-making that older migrants engaged on when asked about their civic engagement. Conducted as part of a European research project (CIVEX), which investigates the exclusion of older people’s civic engagement, this presentation departs from a project that brings attention to the civic engagement of potentially marginalized groups of older people. Sixty migrants aged 60 or over, who migrated during adulthood, were interviewed. They were asked about their involvement in various civic engagement activities, and their own meaning-making as far as this engagement is concerned. The findings suggest that while some of their meaning-making aligns with the scholarly literature (e.g., volunteering, participation in associations), most of it is actually broader. For the participants civic engagement extends beyond traditional definitions, containing aspects such as contributing to society, being a law-abiding citizen, contributing to the bettering of other people and/or surroundings, among others. The findings challenge conventional academic definitions of civic engagement by exposing alternative meanings attributed to the concept. As such, they offer a theorizing ground from which researchers of civic engagement, in social gerontology and in migration studies could expand their own scholarly imagination about how themselves make sense of civic engagement, and how research on this topic could be further developed.