ABSTRACT

This volume examines the manifold, often contradictory, aspects of ageing, considering the ways in which contemporary social transformations affect the experience, conception, interpretation, and representation of ageing. Thematically arranged, it brings together the latest scholarly work from around the world to consider theories and narratives of ageing and the effects of space and place on identity and the experience of old age. Combining micro and macro perspectives, as well as theoretical and applied research, this interdisciplinary volume offers cross-cultural and comparative studies that resist overgeneralization and reductivism in an effort to shed fresh light on our experience, understanding, and response to ageing in the modern world. As such, it will appeal to scholars across the social sciences, particularly sociology, gerontology, demography, social policy, and cultural studies, with interests in ageing and later life.

chapter |10 pages

Introduction

Ageing matters: a constructivist perspective

part 1|92 pages

Theories and narratives of ageing and old age

chapter 1|14 pages

The philosophic homework of later life

On narrative, wisdom, and the positive potential of growing old

chapter 2|23 pages

Gerontophobia

The cultural roots of the old-age anxiety in contemporary society

chapter 3|14 pages

Cougars and crones

Maverick archetypes for older women

chapter 4|24 pages

Visual representations of older persons

Current discourses and their historical roots

chapter 5|15 pages

‘Positive ageing happens in the West’

Ageing perceptions and active ageing policy implementation among Romanian general practitioners

part 2|77 pages

Ageing and old age in different spaces

chapter 6|20 pages

‘It's okay to color outside the lines’

Living, ageing, and dying in a hospice ‘home’

chapter 7|13 pages

Ageing behind locked doors

Growing older in secure mental healthcare and prison settings

chapter 8|16 pages

Providing elderly care in precarious settings

A case study in Lima, Peru

chapter 10|14 pages

Beauty in later life

Voices from older Korean women in New Zealand