Table Of ContentShaping Ageing
This volume examines the manifold, often contradictory, aspects of ageing, considering
the ways in which contemporary social transformations affect the experience,
conception, interpretation, and representation of ageing. Thematically arranged, it
brings together the latest scholarly work from around the world to consider theories and
narratives of ageing and the effects of space and place on identity and the experience of
old age. Combining micro and macro perspectives, as well as theoretical and applied
research, this interdisciplinary volume offers cross-cultural and comparative studies
that resist overgeneralization and reductivism in an effort to shed fresh light on our
experience, understanding, and response to ageing in the modern world. As such, it
will appeal to scholars across the social sciences, particularly sociology, gerontology,
demography, social policy, and cultural studies, with interests in ageing and later life.
Adriana Teodorescu is Associate Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at
Babeş-Bolyai University, Romania, and the co-editor of Death in Contemporary
Popular Culture.
Dan Chiribucă is Professor of Sociology at Babeş-Bolyai University, Romania.
Social Perspectives on Ageing and Later Life
5 Sociology of World Heritage
An Asian Perspective
Ogino Masahiro
6 Paramilitary Groups and the State under Globalization
Political Violence, Elites, and Security
Edited by Jasmin Hristov, Jeb Sprague and Aaron Tauss
7 The Disfigured Face in American Literature, Film, and Television
Cornelia Klecker and Gudrun M. Grabher
8 The Primordial Modernity of Malay Nationality
Contemporary Identity in Malaysia and Singapore
Humairah Zainal and Kamaludeen Mohamed Nasir
9 Political Friendship and Degrowth
An Ethical Grounding of an Economy of Human Flourishing
Areti Giannopoulou
10 Suburbia in the 21st Century
From Dreamscape to Nightmare?
Paul J. Maginn and Katrin B. Anacker
11 Governing Human Lives and Health in Pandemic Times
Social Control Policies
Edited by Matilda Hellman, Tom Kettunen, Saara Salmivaara, and Janne
Stoneham
12 Shaping Ageing
Social Transformations and Enduring Meanings
Edited by Adriana Teodorescu and Dan Chiribucă
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/Routledge-
Advances-in-Sociology/book-series/SE0511
Shaping Ageing
Social Transformations and
Enduring Meanings
Edited by Adriana Teodorescu and
Dan Chiribucă
First published 2022
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
© 2022 selection and editorial matter, Adriana Teodorescu and Dan
Chiribucă; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Adriana Teodorescu and Dan Chiribucă to be identified as
the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual
chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Teodorescu, Adriana, editor. | Chiribuca, Dan, 1967– editor.
Title: Shaping ageing : social transformations and enduring meanings /
edited by Adriana Teodorescu and Dan Chiribucă.
Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2022. | Series: Routledge
advances in sociology | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021051046 (print) | LCCN 2021051047 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780367495954 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367495961 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781003046790 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Aging—Social aspects. | Older people—Social conditions.
Classification: LCC HQ1061 .S4526 2022 (print) | LCC HQ1061 (ebook) |
DDC 305.26—dc23/eng/20211021
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021051046
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021051047
ISBN: 978-0-367-49595-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-49596-1 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-04679-0 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003046790
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
Notes on contributors vii
Introduction: ageing matters: a constructivist perspective 1
ADRIANA TEODORESCU AND DAN CHIRIBUCĂ
PART 1
Theories and narratives of ageing and old age 11
1 The philosophic homework of later life: on narrative,
wisdom, and the positive potential of growing old 13
WILLIAM L. RANDALL
2 Gerontophobia: the cultural roots of the old-age anxiety in
contemporary society 27
MICHAEL HVIID JACOBSEN AND ADRIANA TEODORESCU
3 Cougars and crones: maverick archetypes for older women 50
AMANDA BARUSCH
4 Visual representations of older persons: current discourses
and their historical roots 64
EUGÈNE LOOS AND JO THIJSSEN
5 ‘Positive ageing happens in the West’: ageing perceptions
and active ageing policy implementation among Romanian
general practitioners 88
IRINA CATRINEL CRĂCIUN
vi Contents
PART 2
Ageing and old age in different spaces 103
6 ‘It’s okay to color outside the lines’: living, ageing, and
dying in a hospice ‘home’ 105
E. MOORE QUINN
7 Ageing behind locked doors: growing older in secure
mental healthcare and prison settings 125
RENSKE CLAASJE VISSER
8 Providing elderly care in precarious settings: a case study in
Lima, Peru 138
MAGDALENA ZEGARRA CHIAPPORI
9 Risks and promises of being old in social media 154
ADRIANA TEODORESCU AND DAN CHIRIBUCĂ
10 Beauty in later life: voices from older Korean women in
New Zealand 166
SAEMYI CHUNG
Index 180
Notes on contributors
Amanda Barusch is Professor Emeritus at the University of Otago, New Zealand,
a fellow in the Gerontological Society of America, and former Editor-in-Chief
of Journal of Geronotological Social Work. She serves as Deputy-Editor-in-
Chief for the Australasian Journal on Ageing. Her research interests centre on
the lived experiences of older adults.
Magdalena Zegarra Chiappori is a PhD candidate at the University of Michigan
(the Anthropology Department), Ann Arbor. Her work is located at the inter-
sections of old age, care, and precarity.
Dan Chiribucă is Professor at the Faculty of Sociology and Social Work, Babeş-
Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. His main research interests are in
the fields of research methodology and sociology of communication and media.
Saemyi Chung is Independent Researcher after completing her doctoral degree
from the University of Otago, New Zealand. Her research interest is the inter-
action of age with other categories such as gender, race (ethnicity), and class.
She has a passion for research on ageism and anti-ageing.
Irina Catrinel Crăciun is Associate Professor in health psychology at the Babeş-
Bolyai University, Romania, and Guest Professor of Health and Gender at the
Freie Universität Berlin in Germany. Her research interests comprise devel-
opment across the lifespan, health communication, prevention of gender and
social inequalities for healthy ageing.
Michael Hviid Jacobsen is Professor of Sociology at the Department of Soci-
ology and Social Work, Aalborg University, Denmark. His research interests
include death and dying, palliative care, grief, deviance, the sociology of emo-
tions, criminology, utopia, social theory, and creative and qualitative research
methodologies.
Eugène Loos is Associate Professor at Utrecht University School of Governance.
His research interests are centred upon the impact of textual and visual signs on
accessible digital information for different generations. He is currently focus-
ing on how to fight fake news from a generational perspective.
viii Notes on contributors
E. Moore Quinn is Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Sociology
and Anthropology at the College of Charleston, Charleston, South Carolina,
USA. Quinn’s research interests are located at the intersections of language,
expressive culture, women’s health, and healing. Frequently, Quinn publishes
on Irish and Irish American-related themes.
William L. Randall is Professor of Gerontology at St. Thomas University in
Fredericton, NB, Canada, and founding co-editor of the journal, Narrative
Works: Issues, Investigations, and Interventions. His research interests revolve
around biographical ageing, narrative care with older adults, and the narrative
complexity of spiritual development in later life.
Adriana Teodorescu is Associate Lecturer in the Department of Sociology,
Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. She is the ASDS (The Asso-
ciation for the Study of Death and Society) Ambassador for Romania. Her
research interests include death studies, social gerontology, gender and cultural
studies, comparative literature.
Jo Thijssen is Emeritus Professor at Utrecht University School of Governance.
His research interests are in the social management of human resources and
has a particular focus on ageing in a greying society.
Renske Claasje Visser is a medical anthropologist interested in ageing, dying,
and death. She is Research Fellow at the University of Surrey, UK, conducting
research on cancer care in prison. Previously, she explored ageing in secure
psychiatric hospitals, homemaking in later life, and parental bereavement in
young adulthood. She is the Postdoctoral Representative of the ASDS and
reviews books on death and dying on her blog deadgoodreading.com.
Introduction
Ageing matters: a constructivist
perspective
Adriana Teodorescu and Dan Chiribucă
Ageing between continuity and transformation
Ageing is an extremely diverse, complex, and multi-layered process, enveloping
biological, psychological, social, cultural, economic, medical, political aspects.
All over the world, elders experience the benefits brought by the dramatic growth
in life expectancy that has doubled since 1900, the global average life expec-
tancy nowadays approaching 72 years (Pachana 2017; Roser 2019). However, at
the same time seniors are confronted with unprecedented challenges caused by
the ageing population (Magnus 2008; Gilleard and Higgs 2015): increased social
and economic inequalities (Phillipson 2013), such as poverty and health issues
(Clarke 2011; Gawande 2014) and new and old forms of ageism (Bower 2011:
32–60; Gullette 2017). While societies have to deal with the impact, mostly seen in a
dismal light (Mullan 2002; Lodge et al. 2016; Gullette 2017), of what was called
the ‘greying of general population’ (Hayutin 2007; Bloom et al. 2010), they strive
to find effective solutions in order to increase the social inclusion of older people
(Scharf et al. 2001; Maisondieu 2002) and to dispel the negative public narratives
regarding the elders (Zhang et al. 2006; Davis 2018). It seems that the social real-
ity of old age is both continuously renewed and persistent (Kite et al. 2005; Beard
et al. 2012), while fresh perspectives on old age (Godwin and Poland 2015; Ran-
dall 2016) and new attitudes towards ageing (Karpf 2012) can easily coexist with
extreme negative views (Berry 2012) – be it traditionalist or not.
In such an intricate context, numerous questions arise. For example, how do
the gains in life expectancy along with other correlated demographic phenomena
such as the global and especially Western declining fertility and birth rates (‘Fer-
tility Rate by Country’ 2019) or worldwide changes in family structure (Giddens
2009:302–314, 327–383; Klinenberg 2013) transform the attitudes towards sen-
iors on the background of growing anxieties related to nations’ political future and
the proliferation of public discourses where elders as portrayed as ‘time bombs’
(Mullan 2002)? How does the possibility to live longer influence the perceived
connection between ageing and dying? Do the advances in neurosciences (Little-
field and Johnson 2012) and the emergence of the neuroplasticity concept (Cohen
2005; Eagleman 2012) contribute to establishing more inclusive social policies
and encouraging the elders in maintaining active social roles? Can they positively
DOI: 10.4324/9781003046790-1
