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.
Contributions by:
Sarah Lamb,
Jessica Robbins-Ruszkowski,
Anna Corwin,
Toni Calasanti
Edited by:
Sarah Lamb
Imprint: Rutgers University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 229mm,
Width: 152mm,
Spine: 18mm
Weight: 395g
ISBN: 9780813585338
ISBN 10: 0813585333
Series: Global Perspectives on Aging
Pages: 256
Publication Date: 22 May 2017
Recommended Age: From 18 to 99 years
Audience:
General/trade
,
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
ELT Advanced
,
Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Preface Acknowledgments Introduction: Successful Aging as a Twenty-first-Century Obsession Sarah Lamb, Jessica Robbins-Ruszkowski, and Anna Corwin 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 2 Opting In or Opting Out? North American Women Share Strategies for Aging Successfully with (and without) Cosmetic Intervention Abigail T. Brooks 3 Aging Out: Ageism, Heterosexism, and Racism among Aging African American Lesbians and Gay Men Imani Woody 4 Erectile Dysfunction as Successful Aging in Mexico Emily Wentzell Part II Ideals of Independence, Interdependence, and Intimate Sociality in Later Life 5 Beyond Independence: Older Chicagoans Living Valued Lives Elana D. Buch 6 Growing Old with God: An Alternative Vision of Successful Aging among Catholic Nuns Anna I. Corwin 7 Aspiring to Activity: Universities of the Third Age, Gardening, and Other Forms of Living in Postsocialist Poland Jessica Robbins-Ruszkowski 8 Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot? Friendship in the Face of Dementia Janelle S. Taylor 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 10 Foolish Vitality: Humor, Risk, and Success in Japan Jason Danely 11 Nurturing Life in Contemporary Beijing Judith Farquhar and Qicheng Zhang 12 Depreciating Age, Disintegrating Ties: On Being Old in a Century of Declining Elderhood in Kenya Janet McIntosh 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 14 Comfortable Aging: Lessons for Living from Eighty-five and Beyond Meika Loe 15 Ageless Aging or Meaningful Decline? Aspirations of Aging and Dying in the United States and India Sarah Lamb Epilogue: Successful Aging and Desired Interdependence Susan Reynolds Whyte Notes on Contributors Index
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 for Successful Aging as a Contemporary Obsession: Global Perspectives
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 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 [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
