Imagining the third age: Symbolic exchange and old age
Chris King
School of Public Health, La Trobe University, Melbourne, VIC
PP: 156 - 162
Abstract
In this paper, I argue that current policy representations of old age relativise cultures of old age and preclude development of cultural and social time capable of accommodating embodied old age.
Baudrillard's concept of the simulacrum is used as the basis for understanding the production, reproduction, circulation and consumption of images of old age in creating a 'social imaginary' of collective ageing in contemporary consumer society.
The rationalities and technologies of governmentality are discussed as phenomena that simultaneously underpin the social imaginary and raise new possibilities for representing old age identities. Implications are drawn for health research and practice.
Keywords
Baudrillard; consumer society; images of ageing; old age; postmodern lifecourse; social policy
References
Achenbaum A (1995) Images of old age in America, 1790-1970: A vision and a revision, in Mike Featherstone and A Wernick (eds) Images of ageing: Cultural representations of later life, London: Routledge.
Baudrillard J (1993) Symbolic exchange and death, London: Sage.
Baudrillard J (1983) Simulations, New York: Semiotext(e).
Baudrillard J (1972) For a critique of the political economy of the sign (Trans. Levin, Charles), St Louis: Telos.
Bengtson VL, Cutler NE, Mangen DJ and Marshall VW (1985) Generations, cohorts, and relations between age groups, in R Binstock and E Shanas (eds) Handbook of aging and the social sciences, New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.
Bourdieu P (1979) Distinction: a social critique of the judgement of taste, London: Routledge.
Calhoun RB (1978) In search of the new old: Redefining old age in America, 1945-1970, New York: Elsevier.
Cartwright L (2000) Reach out and heal someone: Telemedicine and the globalization of health care, Health 4(3): 347-347.
Conrad C (1992) Old age in the modern and postmodern western world, in TR Cole, D van Tassel and R Kastenbaum (eds) Handbook of the humanities and aging, New York: Springer.
Costello P and Australian Treasury (2002) Intergenerational report 2002-3: Circulated by the Honourable Peter Costello, MP, Treasurer of the Commonwealth of Australia, for the information of honourable members on the occasion of the budget 2002-3 14 May 2002, Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service.
Covey HC (1987) Images of older people in western art and society, New York: Praeger.
Dodson L and Hudson P (2002) Costello tackles health, aged care, Melbourne: The Age.
Dowd JJ (1984) Beneficence and the aged, Journal of Gerontology 30: 102-108.
Featherstone M (1995) Post-bodies, aging and virtual reality, in Mike Featherstone and A Wernick (eds) Images of aging: Cultural representations of later life, London: Routledge.
Featherstone M and Hepworth M (1984) Changing images of retirement: An analysis of representations of ageing in the popular magazine Retirement Choice, in DB Bromley (ed) Gerontology: Social and behavioural perspectives, London: BSG/Croom Helm.
Featherstone M and Hepworth M (1991) The mask of ageing and the postmodern life course, in Mike Featherstone Mike Hepworth and Bryan S Turner (eds) The body: Social process and cultural theory, London: Sage.
Foster H (1985) Recodings, Seattle: Bay Press.
Green BS (1993) Gerontology and the construction of old age: A study in discourse analysis, New York: Aldine De Gruyter.
Gubrium JF (1988) Incommunicables and poetic documentation in the Alzheimer's disease experience, Semiotica 72: 235-253.
Haraway D (1992) The promises of monsters: A regenerative politics for inappropriate/d others, in L Grossberg, C Nelson and P Treichler (eds) Cultural studies, London: Routledge.
Hazan H (1994) Old age: constructions and deconstructions, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hazan H (1980) The Limbo people: A study of the constitution of the time universe among the aged, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Howe A (ed) (1985) Towards an older Australia, St Lucia: University of Queensland Press.
Katz S (1995) Imagining the lifespan: From premodern miracles to postmodern fantasies, in Mike Featherstone and A Wernick (eds) Images of ageing: Cultural representations of later life, London: Routledge.
Katz S (1992) Alarmist demography: Power, knowledge, and the elderly population, Journal of Aging Studies 6 (3): 203-225.
King C (1997) Cultural dimensions of dementia and care-giving, in G Jones and B Miesen (eds) Care-giving in dementia: Research and applications, Vol. 2. London: Routledge.
Laslett P (1989) A fresh map of life: The emergence of the third age, London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson.
Lee R and Tuljapurkar S (1997) Death and taxes: How longer life will affect social security, Berkeley: Center on the Economics and Demography of Aging, University of California at Berkeley. Available online at http://arrow.qal.berkeley.edu/papers/rlee/deathtax
McCallum J (1997) Health and ageing: The last phase of the epidemiological transition, in A Borowski, S Encel and E Ozanne (eds) Ageing and social policy in Australia, Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.
Shilling C (1993) The body and social theory, London: Sage.
Stearns P (1977) Old age in European society: The case of France, London: Croom Helm.
Turner BS (1995) Ageing and identity: Some reflections on the somatization of the self, in Mike Featherstone and A Wernick (eds) Images of aging: Cultural representations of later life, London: Routledge.
World Bank (1994) Averting the old age crisis: Policies to protect the old and promote growth. A World Bank policy research report, Oxford; New York: Published for the World Bank [by] Oxford University Press.
Worthington di Marzio (1999) Ageing, community attitudes, and older Australians, Canberra: National Strategy for an Ageing Society.

eContent Home




