John A. Vincent

Ageing Contested: Anti-ageing Science and the Cultural Construction of Old Age

Recent developments in the fundamental science of biological ageing have raised the possibility of extending the human lifespan. This article examines contests within bio-gerontology as to the nature of ageing, identifies the methods through which old age is constructed by reference to particular kinds of knowledge and thus considers the impact of the culture of science on the contemporary meaning of old age. Definitions of ageing and death that focus on biological failure lead to a cultural construction of old age whereby diversity across the life course is devalued.

Science and imagery in the ‘war on old age’

ABSTRACT Several professional groups present themselves as ‘waging war’ on old age. They construct old age as a naturalised, self-evidently negative, biological phenomenon, which must be attacked and defeated. These groups make different claims to technical expertise and their ability to control natural phenomena, and use different weapons to defeat ageing. There are those who focus on cosmetic interventions, that is, the control of the body and the removal or masking of the signs of ageing. There are those who equate old age with ill-health and identify themselves as warriors in a battle with disease, and others whose objective is to understand the fundamental intra-cellular processes of ageing and what controls the human life span, and then to extend its limits. A fourth group aims to make human immortality possible. Examination of the language and symbolic practices of these groups reveals that they share a dominant cultural view that devalues old age and older people. The use of military metaphors to describe the importance and difficulties of their task is most prolific among the first and fourth of these groups. The second and third groups disguise a contradiction in their aim of understanding the diseases and disorders of old age by advocating the goal of an extended ‘healthy life span’, which avoids having to confront the moral dilemmas of extending the lifespan for its own sake.

Religion and old age

Summary report . Published by the European Values Group, London and Tilburg,Netherlands.Bauman, Z. 1992. Mortality , Immortality and Other Life Strategies . Polity, Cambridge.Blakemore,K.andBoneham,M.1994. Age , RaceandEthnicity .OxfordUniversityPress,Oxford.Chester, R. and Smith, J. 1996. Acts of Faith: A Study of Older People and Their Places ofWorship . Counsel and Care, London.Cole, T. 1992. The Journey of Life: A Cultural History of Aging in America . CambridgeUniversity Press, Cambridge.Davie, G. 1994. Religion in Britain since †››— : Believing Without Belonging . Blackwell,Oxford.Delamont, S. 1995. Appetites and Identities: An Introduction to the Social Anthropology ofWestern Europe . Routledge, London.Featherstone,M.andWernick,A.1995. ImagesofAgeing:CulturalRepresentationsofLaterLife . Routledge, London.Haber, C. and Gratton, B. 1993. Old Age and the Search for Security . Indiana UniversityPress, Bloomington, Indiana.Hazan,H.1984.Religioninanoldagehome:symbolicadaptionasasurvivalstrategy.

The Anti-Aging Movement

This chapter seeks to characterise the Anti-aging movement and indicate the role it plays in the contested nature of old age. I approach the topic from a cultural anthropological and critical gerontological perspective. My interest has been to investigate how old age is constructed across diverse cultures. The purpose of looking at the Anti-aging movement was to explore the contemporary western idea of old age by examining the contested cultural meanings of ‘old age’ manifest in their antipathy. The research on which this chapter is written in ethnographic is style and based on systematic observation of scientific and other anti-aging conferences, reading and analysis of journals, text-books, websites and other materials produced by a broadly defined Anti-aging movement . The original research is presented in previous publications; the intention here is to summarise that work and suggest some policy implications (Vincent 2003a, b, 2006a, b, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011).

Hans-Werner Wahl, Clemens Tesch-Römer and Andreas Hoff (eds), New Dynamics in Old Age: Individual, Environmental and Societal Perspectives. Baywood, Amityville, New York, 2007, 400 pp., hbk

lation in Wales often differs from that in England. Whilst there are difficulties in making reference to the separate Welsh law, and they would clutter a clear introductory text, there should a declaration that the book describes the position in England and does not fully reflect the position in the other parts of the UK. That aside, the book is a very useful introduction to the legal framework affecting older people, particularly in relation to the provision of community care and health care.