Title: Social theory and aging /
Authors: Powell, Jason L., 1971-
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers,
Year: 2006
Subjects: Gerontology Philosophy.; Aging; Postmodernism.
Abstract: "Social Theory and Aging is a new work that explores both conceptual and theoretical issues that impinge on our understanding of aging in postmodern society. Jason L. Powell analyzes how knowledge formation of aging is socially constructed and positioned by powerful assumptions that are often taken for granted. He demonstrates how assumptions of aging have provided a power and knowledge base for bio-medical disciplines, the legitimacy of political economic discourses, and practices of professional experts, and questions these suppositions by introducing modernist scientific models and theories of gerontology as well as mapping out alternative postmodern deconstructions of aging."--Jacket.
Contents: The relationship of social theory and aging: a critical exegesis -- Modern constructions of aging -- Occidental modernity, the biomedical gaze, and aging -- Theorizing aging: critical explorations of modernist sociological approaches -- Postmodern deconstructions of aging -- Postmodernism, culture, and aging body -- The "Foucault effect" and aging: relations of power, surveillance, and governmentality -- Aging in the "risk society" -- Conclusion: reconstructions of aging.