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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Portraying ageing
— its contradictions and paradoxes | | Author(s) | Lynne Segal |
| Journal title | Working with Older People, vol 19, no 1, 2015 |
| Publisher | Emerald, 2015 |
| Pages | pp 3-11 |
| Source | www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/wwop.htm |
| Keywords | Ageing process ; Attitudes to the old of general public. |
| Annotation | This paper explores the radical ambiguities in the representation and discussions surrounding old age in these times. It highlights the stigma surrounding old age, which in many ways has increased rather than decreased with the ageing of the population. Its aim is to introduce the reader to recent writing and research surrounding talk of a "demographic time bomb", with the ageing of populations worldwide. It also looks back on the work on "ageing studies" over the last two decades, revealing the prevailing disavowals of old age among the old themselves, as well as the contrasting gendered dynamics of the ways in which we are, as Margaret Gullette writes, "aged by culture". The author introduces the conceptual notion of "temporal vertigo" to the complicated effects of the multiplicity of continuities and discontinuities older people experience when reflecting upon who they are over a lifetime. Ageing is of interest for those who have always been sceptical about any notion of the "true self", allowing us to puzzle over how the account the old give of themselves will rely upon their ability to incorporate differing versions of the self, woven into the volatilities of memory and fantasy. This is a revised version of a paper first presented at the 'Portraying Ageing: Cultural Assumptions and Practical Implications' one-day conference held at the British Library on 28 April 2014, which was co-organised with the Centre for Policy on Ageing (CPA) and the School of Languages, Linguistics and Film, Queen Mary University of London (QMUL). (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-150619268 A |
| Classmark | BG: TOB |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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