Table Of ContentInternational Perspectives on Aging 35
Series Editors: Jason L. Powell, Sheying Chen
Jason Powell
Sociology
of Aging
and Death
International Perspectives on Aging
Volume 35
Series Editors
Jason L. Powell, Department of Social and Political Science
University of Chester
Chester, UK
Sheying Chen, Department of Public Administration
Pace University
New York, NY, USA
The study of aging is continuing to increase rapidly across multiple disciplines. This
wide-ranging series on International Perspectives on Aging provides readers with
much-needed comprehensive texts and critical perspectives on the latest research,
policy, and practical developments. Both aging and globalization have become a
reality of our times, yet a systematic effort of a global magnitude to address aging
is yet to be seen. The series bridges the gaps in the literature and provides cutting-
edge debate on new and traditional areas of comparative aging, all from an
international perspective. More specifically, this book series on International
Perspectives on Aging puts the spotlight on international and comparative studies
of aging.
Jason Powell
Sociology of Aging
and Death
Jason Powell
Office of the Provost
Crescent College Birmingham, UK
Birmingham, UK
ISSN 2197-5841 ISSN 2197-585X (electronic)
International Perspectives on Aging
ISBN 978-3-031-19328-6 ISBN 978-3-031-19329-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-19329-3
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG 2022
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of
illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and
transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar
or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the
editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Preface
This original and critical book explores the concept of aging and its relationship to
death in contemporary culture. Health, care, crime, and welfare have emerged as
key themes used to legitimize and position the identities that older people adopt in
contemporary modernity. Both contain continually changing technologies that
function to mediate relations between older people and the State relative to time and
space. Medico-technical-policies, crime and welfare policies, and care management
discourses have been presented as reducing limitations associated with adult aging
and enhancing the quality of life and by extension, life chances. However, they also
represent an increase in professional control and power that can be exerted on old
age and thus, the wider social meanings associated with that part of life. This book
presents an original theoretical analysis based on a critical interpretation of the work
of French philosopher Michel Foucault and the application of aging and relation-
ship to death. The book identifies the inter-relationship between theory, professions,
and policy and older people in terms of power, surveillance, and normalization. The
book highlights how and why older people are the subjects of legitimizing profes-
sional gazes through the dark side of modernity: being managed, being victims,
being abused, and existential questions of death are critically examined with clear
links to policy, theory, and practice.
v
Contents
1 Introduction: What Is Aging? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2 Social Constructions of Aging: Theoretical Excursions . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3 Risk and Aging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
4 Postmodern Sociology and Aging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
5 The Management of Aging in the Dark Side of Modernity . . . . . . . . . 63
6 “It Could Happen to Me”: Victimization and Aging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
7 Elder Abuse and Aging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
8 Aging in an Era of COVID-19 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
9 Death, Culture, and Aging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
10 Rethinking Aging: Toward Trust Relations? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
11 Concluding Comments: Looking Forward . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
vii
Chapter 1
Introduction: What Is Aging?
Contents
1.1 Populational Aging 5
1.2 The Biomedical Model: Biological and Psychological Aging—Science of Aging? 10
1.3 The Dark Side of Biomedical Assumptions: A Critical Analysis 13
1.4 Conclusion 14
References 14
The social research topic of death in old age is very timely and important in the
twenty-first century. One of the fundamental reasons of this subject’s significance is
connected with the fact that by talking about death in old age we can create a much
needed space for critical debates about death. In Western societies, the topic of
death generally was perceived to be a taboo issue until recently.
The theme of death itself has been engaging philosophers, religion, and every
culture for centuries. While the awareness of mortality has always been seen as the
defining truth of human existence, the persistence of varieties of understandings of
this tragic and inconsolable event reflects the notion of death’s complexity, diffi-
culty, and ambiguity. These features of death as the subject matter are revealed in
enormous literature on this topic, from philosophy, theology, psychology, sociologi-
cal theories of death, studies of narratives of death in literature and poems to images
of death in photographs and theatre and research of the relationship of the dead
body with technology.
All these approaches represent the diversity of understandings and conceptual-
izations of the notion of death, and, what’s more, none of these disciplines speak in
one voice. Even philosophy, which tends to concern itself very much with death and
adopts death as the centrality of its craft, is full of contradictory and ambiguous
thoughts on death. For example, while some philosophers, from ancient to contem-
porary society, idealize death (Plato), others glorify it (Schelling); some portray
death as a terrifying fate (Aristotle), yet still others see death as a liberation from an
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 1
J. Powell, Sociology of Aging and Death, International Perspectives on Aging 35,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-19329-3_1
2 1 Introduction: What Is Aging?
unbearable existence (Nietzsche). Moreover, in contrast to thinkers, like Epicurus,
who appreciate death’s moralizing effect and value death for giving rise to reflec-
tions on life, other French philosophers, like the existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre, view
death as depriving life of all sense and making our existence meaningless.
The experience of death has changed over the course of history. In the past, when
societies’ common symbols, traditions, religions, and ceremonies were giving
meaning to people’s experience of death, the ambiguity and difficulties in under-
standing of death were constrained by the main cultural and religious narratives. In
such societies, death was less ambiguous and less subjective as individuals were
prepared for death by the ordering rituals and normative guidance. However, in
modern Western nations, this is no longer the case.
In contemporary cultures, as common symbols and shared traditions have faded
or disappeared altogether, the meaning of death has become more private and more
ambiguous. Today’s lack of rules, directions, and shared expectations about how to
care for and cope with challenges of the end of life means that the majority of the
population are often perplexed by the complex relationship between life and death.
As knowledge about death and dying is not very much expanded and as ambiva-
lence and difficulties in our understanding of death are not confined by cultural
practices and narratives, people tend to cope with these problems by covering them
with great social salience.
Nevertheless, even though the total taboo or denial of death is not anymore the
underlying feature of modern culture, we deal with the ambivalence of our attitudes
to death by keeping a distance from death in societal daily life. Nothing is more
indicative of such attempts to distance ourselves from death than the silence about
death in old age which characterized today’s modern culture.
In advanced Western societies, there is not only a tendency to marginalize the
elderly and keeping the death of the old hidden in the background but also a pro-
found tendency to prevent or deny the changes and declines of age. In today’s devel-
oped nations, where the gains in life expectancy displaced death into old age, most
people assume they will live into older age, even consider death in old age as their
right and designate the constructed notion of “old age” as the appropriate time to die.
Hence, death in old age, seen as being too far away in the future to constitute a
central component of people’s lives, tends to be framed as not a problem to be dealt
with by society. Moreover, this type of thinking is assisted by viewing older peo-
ple’s acceptance of life is coming to an end as “a natural.”
The roots of this ideology can be traced back to ancient philosophical thought
that old age is preparing the individual for death. From Stoics, through Montaigne,
to modern times, old age has been seen as making death more desired than life,
showing courage in the face of death and opting for death as a way of escaping dis-
abilities, boredom, decline, and the miseries of old age.
This has seeped into modern science to the extent that antiaging researchers have
begun a process that one can grow old without aging and extend life to the extent
that immortality is a reality. Of course, decay and deterioration are still the master
narratives of this approach unless an individual invests millions of pounds of their
own resources into such “science” to end their aging. One of the fundamental
1 Introduction: What Is Aging? 3
continuities of this trend of thought is that aging is seen as a “decaying disease” and
the perception given is that only antiaging science can “cure” it as a medical “prob-
lem” by its reversal.
In particular, older people are singled out for the “cure” of their aging because,
according to this approach, the human body “declines” over time, both biologically
and psychologically. While this might sound like fiction, antiaging researchers pro-
fess their belief that old age can be reversed while retaining the agist view—that
without their intervention, old age will always be an inevitable march leading to
death. Central to any discussion on antiaging medicine is how we define old age.
Contemporary antiaging technoscience exploits tensions between clinical and
molecular gerontology in terms of definitions of old age. While age-related condi-
tions are approached clinically as distinct diseases with discrete etiologies, molecu-
lar evidence suggests that they are instead co-rooted in “senescence” (Powell,
2006a, b, c). Senescence is a broad biological process characterized by progressive
physiological degeneration and functional decline over time. It entails decreasing
DNA repair and increasing mutation and the accumulation of damaged proteins.
The intended consequences of this process are manifest in many familiar forms—
tooth enamel wears away, arteries harden, bone density diminishes—and it also
leads to various notable conditions. For example, the pathobiological pathways of
neurodegenerative conditions such as Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, and Alzheimer’s
disease can be traced to senescent processes (De Grey, 2007). Indeed, age is the
strongest risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease and is the only significant risk factor
for the oldest-old but should come with a corrective that it impacts all age groups.
Hence, despite such associations, caution is required here. The mechanisms involved
remain poorly understood, and uncertainties persist regarding whether the quasi-
pathophysiological phenomena associated with aging are pathogenic.
Senescence attempts to explain the aging process, spanning hundreds of different
theories across more than two centuries of scholarship. These theories of aging can
broadly be categorized as extrinsic (damage is done to the organism) and intrinsic
(degeneration is preprogrammed in the organism). The wear-and-tear theory, attrib-
uted to influential nineteenth-century bio-gerontologist August Weismann, attri-
butes aging to the random accrual of damage resulting from the organic processes
of life, wherein cells eventually degrade through repeated use. Wear-and-tear has
long been contested by proponents of intrinsic aging models (Powell, 2005).
For example, the aging-clock theory contends that the aging process, through
conception, development, and senescence, is an evolutionary legacy that is geneti-
cally and hormonally managed, potentially benefiting a species by minimizing the
competition faced by new cohorts. This is based on the observation that specific
hormones are typically produced at specific points in the life-course to optimize the
organism for certain requirements, particularly with regard to reproduction. Another
popular intrinsic theory of aging is cellular senescence, not to be confused with
senescence, which describes the observation that cells are generally limited to a
certain number of divisions (the “Hayflick limit”), see after which they die (De
Grey, 2007).
