Silver-haired teachers going to the west: Retired female university teachers’ spatial praxis and self-reconstruction in Western China

This study aims to explore the participation of retired female university teachers in China in the state-led "Silver-Haired Teachers Going to the West" program, viewing this participation as a unique form of spatial praxis and a process of active aging. Faced with identity transitions brought by retirement and the prevalent dual discrimination based on gender and age in society, these silver-haired female intellectuals take up teaching positions at universities in underdeveloped western China. Drawing on six months of ethnographic fieldwork at a university in the western region and in-depth interviews with seven female participants, this study focuses on analyzing three interrelated dimensions. First is body-space negotiation-how these teachers challenge societal stereotypes about the physical frailty and spatial limitations of elderly women, and transform frontier university campuses into platforms for intellectual vitality. Second is trans-local care networks-how they build a flexible care system to balance their role as caregivers in eastern family spaces and their role as mentors in western campus spaces. Third is cognitive territorialization-how they challenge the existing "center-periphery" knowledge geography pattern and patriarchal structures in academic fields through knowledge transfer and the establishment of cross-generational female alliances. The study finds that their practice of moving to western China is more than a geographical relocation; it is an agentive process of self-reconstruction. This research provides a new perspective for understanding the later life, gender identity, and social participation of aging women.