The twin faces of ageism, glorification and abjection: A content analysis of age advocacy in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic

While the government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have varied across the globe, there has been a unifying cry from academia and public health professionals warning of the detrimental effects of attaching our understanding of this new threat to our already ageist attitudes. What is inescapable is that COVID-19 has an age-related risk component and the latest data shows that risks start to rise for people from midlife onwards. As governance agencies, professional practice, and academia work towards assessing, communicating, and addressing this risk, we ask: are existing gerontological conceptualisations of ageism appropriate for this exceptional situation and what is being (re)produced in terms of an aged subjectivity? Following van Dyk's (2016) critique of gerontology's ‘othering’ through both ‘glorification’ (third age) and ‘abjection’ (fourth age), a content analysis of statements and policy documents issued in response to COVID-19 provides evidence of well-meaning and inadvertent ageism through homogenizing language, the abjection/glorification binary within ‘old age’, and the power binary constructed between age and an age-neutral midlife. The paper concludes with reflections on future directions for ageism research beyond COVID-19. •COVID-19 has brought ageism to the forefront of public discourse.•Within critical and mainstream gerontology there are two processes of othering: glorification and abjection.•We ask whether these concepts are relevant in the context of the pandemic and how they can be applied.•Age advocacy reproduces ageist discourse through this dual process of othering such that the older population are treated as a homogenous group.•The problems inherent in ageism research can be addressed through increased participation, age-disaggregated data, and reflective practice.