ABSTRACT
In the previous chapter of this book, Mitchell and colleagues gave a detailed overview of the effects of economic austerity on services used by older LGBT*1 people. This chapter2 extends this by focusing on how my attempts to put the outcomes and recommendations of a project I conducted on LGBT* ageing in the UK into both policy and practice were shaped by the same social, political and economic climate that Mitchell and colleagues identify, albeit on a smaller scale and in specific ways. This chapter discusses a project called ‘Putting Policy into Practice’ (PPiP), conducted in the UK between October 2010 and November 2011, which was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and undertaken in collaboration with a local government authority (LGA). PPiP was guided by concerns about knowledge exchange and research impact; to ensure that, in this case, LGBT* ageing research and the recommendations developed from it would have an effect on the experiences of older LGBT* service users. The chapter will therefore discuss the methodology and findings of the PPiP project in detail before reflecting on the significance of austerity for the project. In so doing, the chapter addresses issues of emotional labour and LGBT* citizenship, arguing that undertaking impactful research with and for older LGBT* people in times of austerity has a number of ‘costs’, not least the effects on older LGBT* people’s ability to be full citizens in ways that are unproblematic for their heterosexual and cisgender peers. Overall, the chapter argues that despite attempts by those researching LGBT* ageing to create changes in policy and practice, we cannot ignore wider economic and political factors and how they interact with attempts to improve services for older LGBT* people.
