This book presents a critical analysis and examination of the major theories and social issues in the social construction of aging and death. It is concerned with the impact of death and places how our experiences of death are transformed by the roles that truth and discourse about aging play in everyday life. A major element of the book is an examination of the way in which groups and individuals employ specific representations of mortality in order to construct meaning and purpose for life and death. To accentuate this, the book provides an investigation into the social construction of death practices across time and space. Special attention is given to the notion of death as a socially accomplished phenomenon grounded in a unique sociological introduction to the meaning of death throughout history to the present. The purpose of this book is to critically inform debates concerning the abstract and empirical features of death examined through the lens of sociological perspectives. This book explores the emergent biomedical dominance relating to ageing and death. An alternative is advocated which re-interprets ageing for Graduate schools. This innovative book explores the concept, history and theory of aging and its relationship to death. Traditionally, many books have focused on older people dying of 'natural causes', a biomedical explanatory framework. This book looks at alternative social theories and experiences with aging and relate to death in different countries, victims, crime, imprisonment and institutional care. Are these deaths avoidable? If so, what are the solutions the book addresses. This is one of the first books that re-interprets aging and its relationship of examples of death. It will be of essential reading for graduate students and researchers in understanding these different examples of aging and death across the globe.
Author(s): Jason Powell
Series: International Perspectives on Aging, 35
Publisher: Springer
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 168
City: Cham
Preface
Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction: What Is Aging?
1.1 Populational Aging
1.2 The Biomedical Model: Biological and Psychological Aging—Science of Aging?
1.3 The Dark Side of Biomedical Assumptions: A Critical Analysis
1.4 Conclusion
References
Chapter 2: Social Constructions of Aging: Theoretical Excursions
2.1 The Gaze of Functionalist Gerontology
2.2 Disengagement Theory
2.3 Activity Theory
2.4 Political Economy of Old Age
2.5 Feminist Interpretations of Aging and Gender
2.6 “Race” and Aging
2.7 Sexuality and Aging
References
Chapter 3: Risk and Aging
3.1 Risk, Work, and Pensions: A Recalibration
3.2 Population Aging and Risk
3.3 Extending Working Lives
3.4 Conclusion: Aging, Welfare, and Risk—Lessons for Critical Understanding
References
Chapter 4: Postmodern Sociology and Aging
4.1 The Development of Postmodern Social Theory
4.2 Theorizing the Aging Body
4.3 Popular Culture and the Aging Body
4.4 The Gendered Aging Body
4.5 Biotechnology and the Body: Reinventing Aging?
4.6 Conclusion
References
Chapter 5: The Management of Aging in the Dark Side of Modernity
5.1 Problematizing Aging
5.2 Why Foucault?
5.3 The “Gaze” of Medical Power
5.4 “Surveillance” and the “Mixed Economy of Welfare”
5.5 Normalization and the Probe of Assessment
5.6 Resisting Domination?
5.7 Conclusion
References
Chapter 6: “It Could Happen to Me”: Victimization and Aging
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Connecting “Old Age,” Victimology, and Crime
6.3 Victimization and Old Age: An Overview of the Literature
References
Chapter 7: Elder Abuse and Aging
7.1 What Is Elder Abuse?
7.2 The Modern “Discovery” of Elder Abuse
7.3 Foucault and Relevance to Elder Abuse
7.4 Care Management
7.5 Panopticism
7.6 Conclusion
References
Chapter 8: Aging in an Era of COVID-19
8.1 Contextual Backdrop
8.2 COVID-19: Biomedicine, Mental Health, and Aging—Toward a Foucauldian Analysis
8.3 Declining to Decline: Active Aging?
8.4 Conclusion
References
Chapter 9: Death, Culture, and Aging
9.1 Introduction
9.2 Understanding Michel Foucault
9.3 Archaeology and Death
9.4 Genealogy and Death
9.5 Conclusion
References
Chapter 10: Rethinking Aging: Toward Trust Relations?
10.1 Introduction
10.2 Health and Life Chances in the UK: Contextual Backdrop
10.3 Navigating Trust in Health Management with Users
10.3.1 Individuals, Organizations, Policies on, and Systems
10.4 Implications of Trust in Policies on Health
10.5 Linking Health with Trust and Governmentality
References
Chapter 11: Concluding Comments: Looking Forward
11.1 Demographics, Poverty, and Agism
11.2 The Foucauldian Analytical Framework of Governmentality
11.3 Policy Constructs
11.4 Integrating Health and Social Services: Policy and Older People
References
References
Index
