Mair Underwood

Ethical Concerns in the Community About Technologies to Extend Human Life Span

Debates about the ethical and social implications of research that aims to extend human longevity by intervening in the ageing process have paid little attention to the attitudes of members of the general public. In the absence of empirical evidence, conflicting assumptions have been made about likely public attitudes towards life-extension. In light of recent calls for greater public involvement in such discussions, this target article presents findings from focus groups and individual interviews which investigated whether members of the general public identify ethical issues surrounding life-extension, and if so, what these ethical issues are? In this study, while some participants were concerned primarily with the likely personal consequences of life-extension, for others the question of whether or not to pursue interventions to extend longevity, and how they should be implemented, clearly raised important ethical issues, many of which have been prominent in debates among bioethicists.

Reflexivity and Minimization of the Impact of Age-Cohort Differences Between Researcher and Research Participants

Reflexivity in research can be defined as (a) the acknowledgment and identification of one’s place and presence in the research, and (b) the process of using these insights to critically examine the entire research process. Many authors implore qualitative researchers to be reflexive. Very few, however, specify how to do this in practice. Furthermore, in discussions of the presence and place of the researcher, the tendency has been to focus on such factors as gender and race or ethnicity with very little attention being given to age or cohort. In this article we seek to redress this deficiency by examining how reflexivity was practiced in a context in which there was a marked difference in age and cohort membership between researcher and research participants. Specifically, we describe the methodological challenges faced by a younger researcher conducting research with older study participants on the lived experience of the body, and how reflexivity was used to adapt the methodology employed so it became more appropriate and productive within this context.

Community perceptions on the significant extension of life: an exploratory study among urban adults in Brisbane, Australia.

Some researchers in the field of ageing claim that significant extension of the human lifespan will be possible in the near future. While many of these researchers have assumed that the community will welcome this technology, there has been very little research on community attitudes to life extension. This paper presents the results of an in-depth qualitative study of community attitudes to life extension across age groups and religious boundaries. There were 57 individual interviews, and 8 focus groups (totalling 72 focus group participants) conducted with community members in Brisbane, Australia. Community attitudes to life extension were more varied and complex than have been assumed by some biogerontologists and bioethicists. While some participants would welcome the opportunity to extend their lives others would not even entertain the possibility. This paper details these differences of opinion and reveals contrasting positions that reflect individualism or social concern among community members. The findings also highlight the relationship between Christianity, in particular belief in an afterlife, and attitudes to life extension technology. Overall, the study raises questions about the relationship between interest in life extension, the medicalisation of ageing and the increasing acceptability of enhancement technologies that need to be addressed in more representative samples of the community.

Managing a marginalised identity in pro-anorexia and fat acceptance cybercommunities

This study examines how members of pro-anorexia (PA) and fat acceptance (FA) cybercommunities manage their ascribed ‘offline’ socially marginalised identity in an ‘online’ environment. While much of the sociological literature continues to focus on the corporeal or face-to-face practices of socially marginalised groups, we use online non-participant observation to explore how members of these sites use the internet to manage their marginalised identities. We find that cybercommunities provide a safe place for identity management where members come together to understand, negotiate and, at times, reject the marginalised identity ascribed to them in their offline environment. From the accounts of the PA and FA members we studied, we find that online and offline identities are mutually reinforcing and collectively inform and shape identity. However, the online environment provides an anonymised space for identity work, emotional support and an acceptance of their body, whatever their shape or size.

Exploring the social lives of image and performance enhancing drugs: An online ethnography of the Zyzz fandom of recreational bodybuilders

BACKGROUND As a result of the mainstreaming of bodybuilding, the majority of image and performance enhancing drug (IPED) users are now not athletes or competitive bodybuilders, but recreational bodybuilders. Previous approaches provide little insight into how the shift from competitive to recreational contexts impacts the use of IPEDs. METHODS In this study an online ethnographic approach is used to explore the social lives of IPEDs in a recreational context. The study focusses on the Zyzz fandom, an international online community of thousands of recreational bodybuilders who idolise the alleged IPED user Zyzz. RESULTS Zyzz fans see IPED prohibition as failing, as causing harm to users, and as sexist. Their IPED use is informed by not only instrumental benefits, but social benefits such as altering gendered power relations. IPEDs have been normalised in this community, and new patterns of use are emerging. CONCLUSION IPEDS have moved through different hands, contexts and uses, and in so doing the values, norms and meanings attached to IPEDs have changed. The results suggest that intervention efforts may be best directed towards harm minimisation, and in particular towards bridging the divides between the medical and bodybuilding communities.

Building capacity in ageing research: Implications from a survey of emerging researchers in Australia

Objective:  The National Emerging Researchers in Ageing Study (NERAS) set out to inform capacity‐building efforts in ageing research. Its purpose was to identify the interest, attitudes and motives of PhD students to enter the field and factors influencing intention to remain.

Community Attitudes to the Regulation of Life Extension

Abstract:  Technologies purported to extend human life are already being marketed widely, and are being used by community members, despite a lack of evidence on their efficacy or safety: in fact, the use of some putative anti‐aging technologies (e.g., human growth hormone) is illegal. Existing regulation is proving to be ineffective, especially in the face of Internet sales. Further advances in the field of life extension are a distinct possibility, exacerbating the need for a policy response. This paper presents the preliminary results of a study of community attitudes to life extension, with a focus on attitudes to the control and availability of strong life‐extending technologies.

Body as choice or body as compulsion: An experiential perspective on body-self relations and the boundary between normal and pathological

Abstract There has been much talk in sociological circles of bodies as ‘projects’ or ‘choices,’ but surprisingly little examination of how these projects and choices are experienced. Consumer culture has been described as heralding a new era in body–self relations, but few have explored the experience of body–self relations. Body–self relations emerged as central to understanding in this study of the experience of the body at different ages (20–30, 45–55 and 70+ years), demonstrating the utility of empirical investigations in this area. This paper describes an orientation to the body that was common to the sample of 20 young people (aged 20–30 years) interviewed as part of this study. This orientation informed their health-related behaviours such as diet and exercise, but some participants found it to be problematic. Their voices demonstrate that bodily ‘choices’ may actually be experienced as irrational and even psychopathological compulsions. This experiential perspective suggests that normality may be continuous with pathology, and that differences are of degree rather than kind. The findings have implications for the treatment and prevention of eating disorders and obesity.

More than Just a Talkfest: The Process of Developing Collaborations in Ageing across Two Different Community Types

In the contemporary context, collaborations between different sectors are increasingly being used to solve complex policy problems. This includes those posed by population ageing, as one of the principal demographic forces shaping the policy agenda of countries such as Australia. This article draws on findings from a three-year research project designed to develop effective collaborations aimed at achieving local initiatives associated with ageing well within the community. The specific aim of this article is to analyse and compare the process of collaboration that developed in two different urban communities, employing a conceptual framework of effective collaboration developed from the literature. The framework comprises six inter-connected factors—the context, member characteristics, processes and procedures, structures and relationships, the purpose or goal of the collaboration, and the available resources. The two study communities comprised one traditional ageing-in-place context and one sea change environment, in order to look for similarities and differences across alternative urban environments associated with population ageing. The intention of the article is to contribute to knowledge around building effective community-based collaborations.

‘You are just an idiot for not doing any physical activity right now’ Pre-service Health and Physical Education teachers’ constructions of fatness

Research among former Physical Education (PE) school students has demonstrated how fat phobia in PE classes is oppressive and makes it extremely difficult for most students to develop positive subjectivities. This study explores how a group of pre-service Health and Physical Education (HPE) specialist teachers from an Australian university construct fatness discourses. Taking a Foucauldian perspective, focusing particularly on the concepts of surveillance and normalisation, this paper explores the dominant discourses that pre-service HPE specialist teachers construct about fatness. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews (three interviews per participant) were conducted with 14 students (11 females and three males) aged between 18 and 26 at the time of the first interview. The results of a content analysis of the interview data suggest that students generally tend to classify certain bodies as ‘decent’ and ‘normal’, implying the existence of ‘indecent’ and ‘abnormal’ bodies. Participants also expressed a paternalistic approach and moral judgments towards people they considered to be fat. The results suggest that HPE specialist teachers have certain constructions of fatness that could be explored in their undergraduate degrees so as to minimise any possible ramifications for their teaching.