Social Theory and Aging

This book attempts to identify two central areas for the study of aging and the epistemological differences and continuities between them: constructions of aging (modern) and deconstructions of aging (postmodern).

This book explores both conceptual and theoretical issues that impinge on understanding aging in (post) modern society. It analyses how knowledge formation of aging, with particular reference to ''old age'' in contemporary western society, is socially constituted and positioned by powerful ''taken for granted assumptions''. These assumptions have provided a power/knowledge base for bio-medical disciplines, legitimacy of political-economic discourses and practices of professional experts. The book is in two parts: the first part introduces ''modernist'' scientific models and theories of gerontology and questions their importance in mapping out the assumptions of aging and how they impinge on identity performance in society through disciplinary matrix of biology, psychology and social conceptualizations of gerontology; the second part focus upon ''postmodern'' constructions aging through the articulation and development of novel epistemologies: postmodernism and aging body; discourse and power/knowledge; and ''aging'' in the ''risk society''. The book addresses a key question: can ''meta-theories'' provide an effective analysis of aging which is radically different from modernist ''grand narratives'' as epitomized by not only bio-medical models of aging but also of mainstream social theories of gerontology.