scholarly journals Elderhood, Agency and Existential Vulnerability

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 499-499
Author(s):  
H E Laceulle
Keyword(s):  
Old Age ◽  
Personal Growth ◽  
Successful Aging ◽  
Late Life ◽  
Feminist Philosophy ◽  
Cultural Image ◽  
The Face

Abstract Popular conceptualizations of elderhood often use a spiritually inspired language of personal growth and wisdom. These conceptualizations are rightly critical of the language of activity and productivity that abounds in dominant successful aging discourses. Instead, the emphasis is placed on embracing our diminishing strength and increasing dependence with an attitude of resignation and gracious acceptance. Problematically, however, this can reinforce the ageist cultural assumption that old age lacks agency. If the emerging discourse about elderhood is truly to serve as a more inspiring cultural image of late life, it requires a reconceptualization of agency in the face of existential vulnerabilities. This paper aims to present a possible philosophical outlook for such a reconceptualization. It will draw on sources from feminist philosophy to argue how confrontations with vulnerability need not be an obstacle, but rather inspire alternative conceptualizations of agency that are a welcome addition to gerontological thinking.

scholarly journals The Process of Successful Ageing

1996 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 397-422 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margret M. Baltes ◽  
Laura L. Carstensen
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Old Age ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Late Life ◽  
Successful Ageing ◽  
Human Ageing ◽  
Great Heterogeneity ◽  
The Face ◽  
New Research ◽  
Gains And Losses

AbstractAs increasingly more people experience old age as a time of growth and productivity, theoretical attention to successful ageing is needed. In this paper, we overview historical, societal and philosophical evidence for a deep, long-standing ambivalence about human ageing that has influenced even scientific views of old age. In recent years, however, discussion of the psychological and behavioural processes people use to maintain and reach new goals in late life has gained momentum. We contribute to this discussion the metamodel of selective optimisation with compensation, developed by Baltes and Baltes. The model is a metamodel that attempts to represent scientific knowledge about the nature of development and ageing with the focus on successful adaptation. The model takes gains and losses jointly into account, pays attention to the great heterogeneity in ageing and successful ageing, and views successful mastery of goals in the face of losses endemic to advanced age as the result of the interplay of the three processes, selection, compensation, and optimisation. We review evidence from the biological and social science literatures for each component and discuss new research avenues to study the interaction of the three processes.

Resilience and levels of reserve capacity in later adulthood: Perspectives from life-span theory

1993 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 541-566 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ursula M. Staudinger ◽  
Michael Marsiske ◽  
Paul B. Baltes
Keyword(s):  
Life Span ◽  
Human Development ◽  
Old Age ◽  
Successful Aging ◽  
Developmental Psychology ◽  
Reserve Capacity ◽  
Second Line ◽  
First Line ◽  
Selective Optimization With Compensation ◽  
The Face

AbstractThe goal of this article is to explore the utility of integrating two lines of research on questions of modifiability or plasticity of human development. The first line, dealing with the notion of resilience, originated within the field of clinical developmental research. The second line, concerned with developmental reserve capacity, evolved primarily within the field of life-span developmental psychology. Resilience addresses questions of maintenance and recovery of adaptation in the face of stress. In addition, ideas about levels of reserve capacity, rooted in life-span developmental psychology, emphasize the potential for growth. A review of research in the areas of cognitive and self-related functioning provides evidence for resilience as well as developmental reserve capacity in adulthood and old age. It is argued that across the life span reserve capacity is increasingly allocated to resilience-related processes (maintenance of functioning and recovery from dysfunction) rather than growth. A model of successful aging is discussed which suggests that, by means of selective optimization with compensation, old age nevertheless continues to hold the potential for selective growth.

Multidomain trajectories of psychological functioning in old age: A longitudinal perspective on (uneven) successful aging.

2013 ◽  
Vol 49 (12) ◽  
pp. 2309-2324 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Morack ◽  
Nilam Ram ◽  
Elizabeth B. Fauth ◽  
Denis Gerstorf
Keyword(s):  
Old Age ◽  
Psychological Functioning ◽  
Successful Aging

Un/re/production of Old Age inThe Taking of Deborah Logan

Somatechnics ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 178-194
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Kotwasińska
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Old Age ◽  
Horror Film ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Loss Of Control ◽  
Found Footage ◽  
Progressive Loss ◽  
The Face ◽  
Female Embodiment ◽  
Main Protagonist

The article offers a re-examination of abjected femininity and old age through a close reading of The Taking of Deborah Logan (2015), a found footage horror movie centered on spectral possession. While to a large extent the movie replicates an infamous monstrous old woman trope, it also effectively questions typical Alzheimer's disease (AD) narratives, which tend to portray life with AD as a story of unmitigated loss and debility. In The Taking of Deborah Logan, potentially destabilizing moments occur when in the face of progressive loss of control, memory, and bodily functions, the main protagonist is momentarily experienced as resisting the dehumanisation and loss of agency conventionally associated with AD and possession alike. The aim of this article is thus three-fold. The first part sketches the processes through which possession narratives generate a highly ambivalent space for aging femininity in horror film, and how aging, disability, and AD intersect both in popular understanding and in film. In the second part, the author examines how The Taking of Deborah Logan, as a found footage horror, shapes a discussion about selfhood, agency, and monstrous embodiment. Finally, the author argues that it is through the concept of transaging that one can find ways to destabilise traditional understandings of old age, female embodiment, and AD, and offer new narratives that highlight monstrous, if ambivalent, agency.

scholarly journals Mania in late life

2011 ◽  
Vol 17 (5) ◽  
pp. 357-364
Author(s):  
Felicity Richards ◽  
Martin Curtice
Keyword(s):  
Older People ◽  
Old Age ◽  
Specific Treatment ◽  
Late Life ◽  
Aging Population ◽  
Age Group ◽  
Treatment Algorithms ◽  
Assessment And Treatment ◽  
Old Age Psychiatry ◽  
Older Populations

SummaryMania in late life is a serious disorder that demands specialist assessment and management. However, it is greatly under-researched, with only a paucity of studies specifically analysing older populations. The mainstay of the old age psychiatry workload will inevitably be concerned with assessing and managing dementia and depression, but the steady rise in the aging population with longer survival means that there will be an increase in absolute numbers of older people presenting with mania. There are no specific treatment algorithms available for mania in late life. This article reviews mania and hypomania in late life and concentrates on diagnosis, assessment and treatment, as well as on the management considerations associated with this important age group.

The Politics of Living Death in Nuruddin Farah's Sweet and Sour Milk

2021 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-103
Author(s):  
Peter Leman
Keyword(s):  
Old Age ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Common Fate ◽  
Sour Milk ◽  
Living Dead ◽  
The Face

Abstract This article examines Nuruddin Farah's 1979 novel Sweet and Sour Milk, asking how we read representations of postcolonial mourning and living death in the context of global authoritarianism. The first novel in Farah's influential dictatorship trilogy, Sweet and Sour Milk introduces us to “the General,” a fictionalized version of Siyad Barre, who ruled Somalia from 1969 to 1991. Like Barre's, the General's power exemplifies what Achille Mbembe calls “necropolitics,” or “the contemporary subjugation of life to the power of death.” The General's necropower manifests, peculiarly, as a politics of substitution—that is, when he takes a life, he leaves something in its place. Rebels do not simply disappear; they are killed and then given sycophantic zombie afterlives in the General's propaganda. In response to this politics of substitution, Farah explores a politics of mourning, which insists upon the irreplaceability of lost love objects and thereby broadly reveals what truly can and cannot be substituted. The General insists on the uniqueness of his power, for example, but Farah reveals it to be a cliché, easily substituted by that of other dictators throughout history. Cliché becomes revolutionary in this way, suggesting that dictators share a common fate: they will be deposed or, eventually, die of old age. However, like a horde of the living dead, others like them will return. The article concludes with analysis of the apparent pessimism of this point and the global implications of Farah's ideas about both necropolitics and the limits of the novel form in the face of authoritarian power.

scholarly journals Młodość wobec starości: szacunek czy deprecjacja? „Namir!” Lubka Deresza

2017 ◽  
Vol 163 ◽  
pp. 401-414
Author(s):  
Albert Nowacki
Keyword(s):  
Old Age ◽  
Mass Culture ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Research Task ◽  
The Face

Youth to old age: respect or depreciation? Namir! by Lubko DereshThis article deals the problem of old age in the novel Namir! by Ukrainian writer Lubko Deresh. To accomplish this research task, at the beginning of the presentation problem of how the elderly was presented in culture and literature over the centuries was analyzed, and then was analyzed the novel itself. Studies have shown that in his book the author raised the question of a confrontation of youth with an old age. Our analyzes of Namir! by Deresh turned out that it repeats the patterns of mass culture, showing atendency to devaluation the elderly. During the study revealed, however, achange in approach to the problems of old age, which is visible attitude of respect for the elderly linked to equality in the face of inevitable death.Молодість перед старістю: пошана чи зневага? Намір! Любка ДерешаМетою цієї статті є спроба показати проблему старості в романі українського пись­менника Любка Дереша Намір! Щоб успішно висвітлити так окреслене завдання, на по­чатку було звернено особливу вагу на те, як питання старості представлялося культурою та літературою протягом століть, і тільки тоді було звернено увагу на саму повість. Дослі­дження показали, що в своїй книзі автор використав питання конфронтації молодого віку із старістю. Під час аналізу нами було встановлено, що Намір! повторює схеми масової куль­тури та показує виразну схильність автора до девальвації літніх людей. Наше дослідження показало, однак, певну зміну в підході до проблеми старості, а саме, що зміна зневаги на ставлення з повагою до літніх людей пов’язана із рівністю всіх людей перед обличчям не­минучої смерті.

scholarly journals Introduction: Framing Economic Exclusion

2021 ◽  
pp. 25-30
Author(s):  
Jim Ogg ◽  
Michal Myck
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Old Age ◽  
Working Life ◽  
Economic Consequences ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The Past ◽  
Economic Exclusion ◽  
The Face ◽  
Older Citizens ◽  
Multidimensional Concept

AbstractEconomic exclusion is a multidimensional concept that has particular relevance in the context of ageing populations and globalised economies. Sustaining adequate incomes in old age and protecting older citizens from poverty are major challenges for governments and policy makers and they have been amplified in the face of the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the past few decades most countries have made adjustments to their pension systems and other welfare related policies that concern older citizens, and these reforms have already had and will continue to have a differential impact on economic exclusion. For some, extending the working life and pushing back the legal age of retirement can be a safeguard against inadequate incomes in old age, while for others who are excluded from the labour market, or who are working in low paid jobs, economic exclusion remains a reality. The labour market implications of the pandemic are likely to exacerbate this risk for those whose situation was already fragile before the crisis.

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