ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with internal forces of the field making for disintegration of the master category, and with counteractive mechanisms of reintegration: dialectic of dispersal and consolidation. A phenomenal feature of gerontology is the sustenance of a unitary thought-object, the aged, in the face of dispersive pressures built into the linguistic field around it. There are two sources of dispersive pressure internal to gerontology: external and contextual sources. If it is true that a foundational category, “the aged,” is under constant and strong dispersive pressure in the discursive operation of gerontology, this fact should be registered in expressions of difficulty and doubt by operatives of the field. The immanent problem is that of sustaining the referential identity of “the aged” in the course of varied usages and through materials that have nothing self-evidently in common. The age stratification approach in gerontology is especially rich in examples of the standing-passing structure of objectification and will serve to document the objectification device.
