ABSTRACT
Age and tradition are considered to be unreliable criteria to determine seniority. Perfectly in line with formal education and economic efficiency, the norm of democracy prescribes that one should deserve this status through individual achievements or elections. In most rural communities the social evaluations that affect younger adults are transcended with age and that the eldest men approach the status of an ancestor guarding over the living. The study of elderliness in Africa should result in a better understanding of ancestral beliefs. It would help people in particular to grasp the ambivalent position in which the elderly find themselves in the urban and multi-cultural settings, such as described in the contributions on Ghana, Kenya and South Africa. The concept of ageing is burdened in Western society by bio-medical connotations of gradual decline. A second line of future gerontological research would therefore involve closer collaboration with bio-medical personnel, in order to culturally expand the latter's stance on the ageing process.
