In Canada, the concept of the life course has so far been understood and applied primarily as a particular theoretical perspective for research on aging (e.g., Chappell, McDonald, & Stones, Reference Chappell, McDonald and Stones2008; Elder & Johnson, Reference Elder, Johnson and Settersten2003). Many chapters in this new edited work apply the notion of life course beyond that of a theory or perspective; in particular, the life course is understood as a broader paradigmatic backdrop against which aging and old-age themes can be theorized and studied. Such themes include (a) the invisibility of agedness; (b) health (physical, mental, and perceived); (c) health care (formal and informal, as well as caregiver-receiver relationships); (d) the meaning of time and speed; (e) welfare systems and employment of older adults; and (f) images of senior citizens portrayed in media and popular culture. As a collective volume addressing historical and cultural constructions of aging and old age, this book brings together contributors from the humanities and social sciences in Europe and North America.
These multidisciplinary contributions vividly and convincingly demonstrate that aging does not affect individuals in only one specific time and space. Although many chapters do focus on the experiences of older adults, there is a clear sense that these experiences are understood as embedded in relationships with others in the family and broader society and culture, and as connected to both their past and the future. In this sense, the volume echoes Bernice L. Neugarten’s 1994 prediction that “the field of gerontology is going to disappear over the next couple of decades” (in Settersten, Reference Settersten and Settersten2003, p. 10), because aging is a lifelong process.
Alive and Kicking at All Ages is divided into two sections: Material Realities and Cultural Representations. The first section generally aims to connect theory with practice and systematic inquiry, whereas the second section is devoted to depicting the representations of older adults and old age in media, literature, and popular culture (e.g., TV shows, calendars, and community theatre projects). For instance, in the first section, Beverly Lunsford in “I May be Old and Sick, But I Am Still a Person” advocates for a person-centred health care system that would promote and support the quality of life for seniors, and Meiko Makita in “Health and Everyday Bodily Experiences of Old Mexican Women” analyzes the personalized lived experience of older women from a non-English culture, addressing spiritual and attitudinal conceptions of health.
In the book’s second section, several contemporary literary texts (e.g., Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections [New York: Picador USA, 2001], Alice Munro’s short story “The Bear Came Over the Mountain” [Away from Her, Toronto: Penguin Group, 2007]) featuring older adults with dementia or Parkinson’s disease are explored by different authors in relation to love and intimacy in later life, identity, and care facilities as an opportunity for a new life in old age. Each section neatly complements one another in presenting multifaceted individual and social constructions of aging-related concepts.
Though written from various disciplinary perspectives, the theses of the book are carefully arranged around certain common themes. For example, Leni Marshall in “Ageility Studies” elaborates in the first section on the invisibility of aging adults in society in a youth-oriented culture that cherishes physical strength, beauty, health, and vitality, in contrast to the hypervisibility of bodies with disabilities. This same theme is picked up in two other chapters in the second section that illustrate how the invisibility of agedness has been experienced and countered in real life and literature. Sally Chivers et al. in “‘There’s a reason we’re here’” describe an Alberta intergenerational theatre project that provides an opportunity for seniors who have been “invisible” to be viewed and valued. Further, Ellen Matlok-Ziemann “‘Old women that will not be kept away’” presents two fictional older women within two American literary texts who are persistent in visualizing their existence, within different social contexts. For instance, Miss Habersham from Faulkner’s Intruder in the Dust, though regarded as frail and incapable, did not “act her age” but instead surprised her young co-investigators in a murder mystery with her sharpness, courage, and resoluteness.
Several limitations of this volume are worth noting. First, the term “Cultural Constructions” indicated in the book title could be misleading or confusing to some readers, as like most texts, this one focuses on North American and European historical, cultural, and social interpretations and reflections about aging. Furthermore, of 18 chapters, the only chapter that diverges in this regard (about older Mexican women) does not stress the impact of the particular cultural context on these women. Although it is possible that some aging-related phenomena and notions could be universal across cultures and nations, the title of the book could have been more specific about the “culture” in which examined constructions originate. Second, an afterword could have been helpful in summarizing the themes and efforts of the chapters, particularly in synthesizing the positivity illustrated and implied in the way many of the chapters focus on older individuals’ power derived from wisdom or knowledge.
Gaps can also be identified in particular chapters that provide inspiration for future research. Elena Bendien’s “Kwik-Fit versus Varying Speeds of Aging”, a rather abstract discussion, proposes that long-term care should accommodate individual seniors’ decisions about the pace of their lives, hence raises the question of how, exactly, care systems can support individuals in fulfilling such demands In examining the media’s influence on public perceptions of health and old age, Julian Wangler in “Internalization or Social Comparison?” discusses an experimental study in which people, who had been exposed to a negative textual portrayal of older adults, surprisingly reported relatively better self-perceived health than people who were exposed to positive portrayals. This experiment only used one text, however, and assessed attitudinal change right after the subjects had finished reading; one may wonder how media might have longer-lasting positive or negative influences with repeated and mixed information delivered in diverse forms. Lastly, Rüdiger Kunow in “Preemptive Biographies” transforms the notion of pre-emption from a term primarily associated with public security administration into one highlighting considerations related to future (or aging) planning for older adults. A very interesting and potentially powerful theoretical concept, pre-emptive intervention has yet to be refined and distinguished from preventive intervention, which has been familiar to health care professionals for decades.
This comprehensive volume with inspiring theoretical insight can benefit researchers, practitioners, educators, and students in various disciplines who focus on aging studies and provision of health care and social support to seniors and their families. For researchers, for instance, the book suggests the need for quantitative examination of how, for example, “accepting the self in the seemingly-Other mirrored image can lead to greater personal and psychological development” (p. 10). Educators are reminded of the limitations of classroom-based age stimulation exercises (exercises designed to help students experience physical limitations and loss of memory and friends associated with old age) for long-term psychological, cognitive, and affective change, and the greater potential of media analysis for deconstructing old age in popular culture (by Marshall). Practitioners will find the person-centred model (advocated by Lunsford) and Elisabeth Boulot’s analysis (in “Combating Age Discrimination in the Workplace”, p. 131 – 149) of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act particularly relevant to working with older adults. Lastly, students have opportunities to explore the psychological and emotional inner worlds of older adults depicted by the chapters in the Cultural Representations section, and to challenge social and cultural constructions of aging, modelled within the texts’ consistent questioning and critical analysis of these issues.
