ABSTRACT

The choice of pursuing ageing has also happened at the expense of privileging other narratives of human experience, such as gender, orientation, race and cultural diversity. Negotiating a new set of cultural priorities for population ageing raises a series of issues that go beyond labour economics and lie in the rediscovery of whole lifetime perspectives. The choice of pursuing ageing has also happened at the expense of privileging other narratives of human experience, such as gender, orientation, race and cultural diversity. The twin narratives of prolongivism plus its commercial arm, anti-ageing, and of the public perception of dementia, create two opposing aspects of aspirational ageing, one colonising hope and the other fear. The body, in both its physical and mental manifestations, exists as the principal concern of health and biomedicine. A critical analysis of naturalness, disease states and therapies associated with longevity highlights aspects of hope and fear associated with adult ageing.