Successful Aging as a Contemporary Obsession: Global Perspectives

Published by Rutgers University Press 2017

Successful Aging as a Contemporary Obsession

Global Perspectives

Edited by: Sarah Lamb
With contributions by: Sarah Lamb , Jessica Robbins-Ruszkowski , Anna Corwin , Toni Calasanti , Neal King , Abigail Brooks , Imani Woody , Emily Wentzell , Elana Buch , Janelle S. Taylor , Aske Juul Lassen , Astrid Pernille Jespersen , Jason Danely , Judith Farquhar , Qicheng Zhang , Janet McIntosh , Annette Leibing and Meika Loe
Afterword by: Susan Reynolds Whyte

In the series Global Perspectives on Aging

https://doi.org/10.36019/9780813585369

Overview
Contents

About this book

In recent decades, the North American public has pursued an inspirational vision of successful aging—striving through medical technique and individual effort to eradicate the declines, vulnerabilities, and dependencies previously commonly associated with old age. On the face of it, this bold new vision of successful, healthy, and active aging is highly appealing. But it also rests on a deep cultural discomfort with aging and being old.

The contributors to Successful Aging as a Contemporary Obsession explore how the successful aging movement is playing out across five continents. Their chapters investigate a variety of people, including Catholic nuns in the United States; Hindu ashram dwellers; older American women seeking plastic surgery; aging African-American lesbians and gay men in the District of Columbia; Chicago home health care workers and their aging clients; Mexican men foregoing Viagra; dementia and Alzheimer sufferers in the United States and Brazil; and aging policies in Denmark, Poland, India, China, Japan, and Uganda. This book offers a fresh look at a major cultural and public health movement of our time, questioning what has become for many a taken-for-granted goal—aging in a way that almost denies aging itself.

Author / Editor information

SARAH LAMB is a professor of anthropology at Brandeis University. She is the author of White Saris and Sweet Mangoes: Aging, Gender, and Body in North India.

Reviews

"Lamb provides incisive deconstruction of modern notions of ‘successful aging,’ offering a wealth of theoretical perspectives on, and ethnographic illustrations of, approaches to aging in different cultural settings across the globe."

— Jeanne Shea, Department of Anthropology and Center on Aging, University of Vermont

"The book offers insightful and sometimes highly emotional accounts of how we find meaning in the limits of our human condition, making it a delightful read regardless of one’s professional orientation."

— Anthropology News

"[A] valuable aspect of Successful Aging as a Contemporary Obsession is its global perspective....Lamb has done extensive fieldwork in West Bengal, where, far from being idealized, 'too much independence is commonly regarded as the worst thing that can befall one in old age.'"

— This Chair Rocks

"With public conversation about control of aging at an all-time high, these rich ethnographies from around the globe challenge stereotypes of success, failure, and ageism as they illustrate how vitality and vulnerability, independence, need, and care are resourcefully enacted. A timely corrective, this volume is essential for anyone interested in the diverse practices of interdependence and self-making in the world's ever-aging societies."

— Sharon R. Kaufman, author of Ordinary Medicine

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xv
Introduction: Successful Aging as a Twenty-first- Century Obsession Sarah Lamb, Jessica Robbins-Ruszkowski and Anna I. Corwin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
PART I. Gender, Sexuality, and the Allure of Anti-Aging
1. Successful Aging, Ageism, and the Maintenance of Age and Gender Relations Toni Calasanti and Neal King Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	27
2. Opting In or Opting Out? North American Women Share Strategies for Aging Successfully with (and without) Cosmetic Intervention Abigail T. Brooks Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	41
3. Aging Out: Ageism, Heterosexism, and Racism among Aging African American Lesbians and Gay Men Imani Woody Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	55
4. Erectile Dysfunction as Successful Aging in Mexico Emily Wentzell Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	68
PART II. Ideals of Independence, Interdependence, and Intimate Sociality in Later Life
5. Beyond Independence: Older Chicagoans Living Valued Lives Elana D. Buch Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	85
6. Growing Old with God: An Alternative Vision of Successful Aging among Catholic Nuns Anna I. Corwin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	98
7. Aspiring to Activity: Universities of the Third Age, Gardening, and Other Forms of Living in Postsocialist Poland Jessica Robbins-Ruszkowski Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	112
8. Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot? Friendship in the Face of Dementia Janelle S. Taylor Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	126
PART III. National Policies and Everyday Practices: Individual and Collective Projects of Aging Well
9. Getting Old and Keeping Going: The Motivation Technologies of Active Aging in Denmark Aske Juul Lassen and Astrid Pernille Jespersen Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	141
10. Foolish Vitality: Humor, Risk, and Success in Japan Jason Danely Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	154
11. Nurturing Life in Contemporary Beijing Judith Farquhar and Qicheng Zhang Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	168
12. Depreciating Age, Disintegrating Ties: On Being Old in a Century of Declining Elderhood in Kenya Janet Mcintosh Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	185
PART IV. Medicine, Morality, and Self: Lessons from Life’s Ends
13. Successful Selves? Heroic Tales of Alzheimer’s Disease and Personhood in Brazil Annette Leibing Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	203
14. Comfortable Aging: Lessons for Living from Eighty-five and Beyond Meika Loe Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	218
15. Ageless Aging or Meaningful Decline? Aspirations of Aging and Dying in the United States and India Sarah Lamb Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	230
Epilogue: Successful Aging and Desired Interdependence Susan Reynolds Whyte Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	243
Notes on Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	249
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	253

Language: English
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Audience: College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 256
Illustrations
- Other: 3 photographs
Keywords: age; ageist; ageism; old; old people; grandparent; grandmother; grandfather; elder; elderly; older; old age; wrinkle; wrinkles; medicare; social security; public policy; midlife; dementia; suicide; social movement; social justice; health; anti-aging; prevention; public health; exercise; independence; control aging; prevent aging

eBook

Published: May 22, 2017
ISBN: 9780813585369