Contesting Aging and Loss

 

 

 

  

 

Janice Graham and Peter Stephenson

are the co-editors of the new book Contesting Aging and Loss, published in April 2010 by the University of Toronto Press.  This work takes a look at ways in which the idea that older adults are necessarily in decline causes problems in itself.

 

The dominant biomedical paradigm of loss has seeped into too common a practice of engaging elders on terms that are not their own. Instead, Contesting Aging & Loss approaches aging from the viewpoint of those growing old. The contributors to this book take seriously the proposition that aging is complex and multifaceted and encompasses many experiences including those that entail a deep sense of loss. But so too, they discover people who are continuing to encounter fulfilments, gains, struggles and resistances. 
 
The voices heard here contest the dominant paradigm of disease, decline and dementia, and the idea that much of what we experience as we age is simply “inevitable”, a perspective that robs us all of power, agency, and the ability to determine and live fulfilled lives –– whether we are engaged in the study of aging, or are simply growing old. As such, the book is meant as a corrective based on ethnographic evidence. Drawing from South Africa, the Netherlands, Australia and Canada, the stories presented here speak to a dubious connection of the aging and loss paradigm with another dominant paradigm: a free market economic one that ignores the determinants of unequal power, resources, and income.
 

These stories provide a rich conceptual and empirical resource for a seniors-centred approach to living and continuing to grow from those whose lives in many parts of the world reflect a richness that is generally lost in more prosaic studies of aging which depend on statistical information and which often paint an overly simplistic image of despair as numbers dwindle and graphs arc ever downward.

 

 Reviews:

          "Contesting Aging & Loss is a superb example of critical gerontology,”

                         Dr. Keating, Chair of the International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics

 

          “Contesting Aging & Loss provides a richness of thought for the experienced

           policy-maker, academic, and the up-and-coming student concerned with the

           challenging concepts of loss and aging,” 

                                                                          JF Kozak, Providence Health Care, Vancouver

 

 

 

 

Visit the University of Toronto Press website for more information

or to purchase a copy