As a graduate student who has recently laboured through readings of Judith Butler, Michel Foucault, and Nancy Fraser, it was with some hesitation that I approached this text. However, it proved to be an eye-opening read that thoroughly addresses the tensions of various theoretical approaches applied to the study of aging. The authors challenge biological traditions that position aging as physical decline and decay, as well as social constructionist perspectives that locate aging based on an arbitrary chronology (old means having lived 65 years or more) or in terms of relations to production (old means retired with low or no income, and old people belong to an oppressed class). Gilleard and Higgs firmly place themselves in a post-structuralist tradition, defining age as a fluid concept that informs the construction of self-identity. The authors contend that age is an idea of self that is enacted and communicated to others not only through what people say, but through what people do, how they act and how they present themselves. The meaning of age is thus ‘performed’ through the body.
The first two chapters provide a general theoretical overview exploring the limitations and dangers of either biological or cultural essentialism. The authors promote an approach to aging that accepts that the changing status of the corporeal body has individual implications for self-identity and lifestyle, and show how embodied identities and performances of age reshape what it means to be old. Chapters three through six form the second part of the book, which explores aging in relation to gender, race, disability, and sexuality. The remaining chapters form the third part of the book, and provide a detailed analysis of historical and emerging embodied performances, identities, and lifestyles of people as they age.
Rather than a vertical analysis of class or socioeconomic status, or an intersectional analysis of multiple oppressions, Gilleard and Higgs employ a longitudinal and horizontal approach, concluding that people born in the years following World War II form a generation that has created lasting social change for the construction of any number of identities, including what it means to be old. The authors similarly use a Foucauldian analytical lens to examine the meaning of age in academic theories within various social science sub-disciplines. To illustrate, the authors reveal how the political focus of disability studies as a civil rights issue has limited the exploration of flawed bodies, physical vulnerabilities, and the transition between disability and growing old. Academia’s neglect of older persons as a group worthy of attention forms a common thread throughout the text. Overall, the authors assert that there has been a “signal failure to engage seriously with the ageing body” in the social sciences (p. 4), and call for a greater theoretical and political link between aging studies and other disciplines.
Gilleard and Higgs also contend that gerontology itself has struggled with conceptions of age that are either overly essentialist or overly reductionist. Biological, medical, and health discourses tend to identify aging as leading to disability, illness, and need, while ignoring agency and capacity, and social justice advocates position age as an identity of vulnerability and marginalization. Gilleard and Higgs argue that a “new aging” will engage with understandings of embodiment, agency, freedom, and constraint, as these operate together in identity construction.
In the second chapter, the authors identify three social developments informing this “new aging”. First, the past century has seen a shift in focus from class-based difference to embodied difference, self-discovery, and self-expression. Second, the rise of consumerism has generated increasing concern with appearance through the influence of the fashion, cosmetic, and fitness industries among others. Third, the authors point to a distinctly generational consciousness of lifestyle as a form of self-expression. In combination, these three developments have been changing (and continue to change) social expectations of aging.
A major theme throughout the book is embodiment, particularly in relation to identity construction and body work. The concept of body work has four aspects: appearance management, labour on the bodies of others, the work of appropriate emotional expression, and the performances that produce corporeal bodies (Gimlin, Reference Gimlin2007). Gilleard and Higgs primarily use body work in reference to personal care, health, and appearance management, and link these practices to the construction of physical bodies. The text includes a well-versed discussion of the gendered lens often applied to aging. For example, although women have traditionally put more “back-stage” effort into appearance management than men, the authors contend that the balance is shifting as men increasingly pay attention to their bodies.
Body work materially shapes the corporeal body. Exercise routines sculpt the contours of the surface of the body while also affecting its capacity to function and perform. Cultural diet and eating practices also impact the body’s function and appearance, as does “rejuvenation medicine” (p. 145), including hormone replacement therapy and surgeries such as facelifts and hip replacements. The increasing use of wrinkle creams, balding remedies, and engaging in jogging and yoga – all are aspects of personal wellness management and self-governance. Gilleard and Higgs deftly illustrate that these and many other self-care practices are deeply ingrained among contemporary aging baby boomers, evidenced by common social mantras such as “you are only as old as you feel” or “60 is the new 40”. Clearly, contemporary cultural performances of age significantly impact the biology of aging.
The chapter focusing on sex as it relates to age is particularly compelling. Asserting that the notion of “health” is a public virtue, the authors conclude that sex is no longer a private practice, but has become a public concern as an expression of living a healthy lifestyle. The authors identify social conceptions of a healthy sex life as a site of potential oppression, particularly for men. People lacking a vigorous libido may find themselves diagnosed as dysfunctional and presented with psychological, pharmaceutical, and prosthetic interventions and therapies. The authors suggest that academics would do well to examine the sexual practices of older people, in particular among queer communities where sexual practice is deeply imbricated with identity construction and maintenance.
One area of the book that sits uncomfortably is its treatment of race in chapter four. This chapter superficially assesses only a black-white binary of skin colour; racialized identities other than African-American are not mentioned. The authors present race not as a project of colonization, but as a project of biology. This is surprising, since they approach age, gender, sex, and sexuality as embodied identity practices that have significant impacts on corporeal experience. Clearly, the authors could engage more fully with race and ethnicity in relation to their ideas about the “new aging”.
Graduate students, professionals, and academics in the field of aging would be well-served by this book. Though avoiding an overtly convoluted and knotty writing style, this is a dense text drawing from post-structuralist, post-modernist, and phenomenological theoretical traditions, and is thus unsuitable for undergraduate students or non-academics. Lastly, the book cover is rather farcical, depicting a sunglass-wearing, tanned and fit white male (albeit apparently prematurely grey), sitting on a sun-drenched beach in a well-accoutred power chair. Changing lifestyles of disability with a contemporary treatment of youthful aging aside, the image appears contrived.
Despite the identified limitation of their approach to age as it intersects with race, Gilleard and Higgs skillfully explore contemporary issues surrounding the embodied practice of aging and its impacts on cultural constructions and on corporeal bodies. As nations increasingly contend with aging populations, shared conceptions of age are a compelling topic that deserves exploration. The new aging of Gilleard and Higgs is a sociology of aging that positions the body as both a possibility and constraint, the site for practices of freedom as well as the site of vulnerabilities.
