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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Concepts of time and narrative temporality in the study of aging | | Author(s) | Jan Baars |
| Journal title | Journal of Aging Studies, vol 11, no 4, Winter 1997 |
| Pages | pp 283-295 |
| Keywords | Ageing process ; Time conditions. |
| Annotation | In the context of present day Western culture, human ageing is in danger of losing its temporal qualities because of its treatment by scientific research and practical organisation. An overemphasis on chronological concepts of time plays an important role in this process. Such concepts have a special function: they help to produce exact, but abstract and formal measurements. For gerontology, chronological time is indispensable because of its general scope of measurement. At the same time, we have to acknowledge that chronological time concepts can only be of limited significance for understanding the temporal dimensions of ageing. First, it is argued that even for research on ageing, comparative concepts of time deserve the same status as metric concepts. Secondly, it is emphasised that human ageing takes place within human time, with a present, past and future. This sense of longitudinal present is missing in chronological time, but eminently elaborated in narrative action. Narratives also shed some light on the concept of (the ageing) personal identity and cultural images of ageing. |
| Accession Number | CPA-970303009 A |
| Classmark | BG: 4E |
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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