Wiles Allen (2010) Embodied ageing in place (original) (raw)

Age Studies and Disability Studies

Research Methods in Health Humanities, 2019

Learning Objectives After reading this chapter, readers will be able to: 1. Understand the embodied conditions of age and disability as identity categories, and ageism and ableism as forms of prejudice related to these identity categories. 2. Analyze cultural representations of old age and disability through inquiry into narrative forms and identities. 3. Adopt a social model approach to identify structural obstacles that limit options for old and disabled people.

Defining Aging in Place: The Intersectionality of Space, Person, and Time

Innovation in Aging

Aging in place (AIP) is a term that is commonly used and defined in a plethora of ways. Multiple disciplines take a different stance on the definition of AIP, and its definition has evolved over time. Such diverse ways to define AIP could be a barrier to reach a shared expectation among multiple stakeholders when formulating research studies, making policy decisions, developing care plans, or designing technology tools to support older adults. We conducted a scoping review for the term AIP to understand specifically how it has been defined across time and disciplines. We collected exemplary definitions of AIP from 7 databases that represent different fields of study; namely, AgeLine, Anthropology Plus, Art and Architecture Source, CINAHL, PsycINFO, PubMed, and SocINDEX. We conducted a thematic analysis to identify the common concepts that emerged across the definitions identified in the scoping review. We developed 3 main categories from the themes: space, person, and time to illust...

Aging in Place: Evolution of a Research Topic Whose Time Has Come

Journal of Aging Research, 2012

Over the past 30 years, policy makers and professionals who provide services to older adults with chronic conditions and impairments have placed greater emphasis on conceptualizing aging in place as an attainable and worthwhile goal. Little is known, however, of the changes in how this concept has evolved in aging research. To track trends in aging in place, we examined scholarly articles published from 1980 to 2010 that included the concept in eleven academic gerontology journals. We report an increase in the absolute number and proportion of aging-in-place manuscripts published during this period, with marked growth in the 2000s. Topics related to the environment and services were the most commonly examined during 2000–2010 (35% and 31%, resp.), with a substantial increase in manuscripts pertaining to technology and health/functioning. This underscores the increase in diversity of topics that surround the concept of aging-in-place literature in gerontological research.

Theorising Embodiment and Ageing

The body is inescapable. This is amply illustrated when we age. It seems obvious to state that becoming and being old has a physical component. However, how we describe this component, the importance we attribute to it to explain other aspects of ageing, brings the bodily aspect of ageing into a different realm, that of the social and the cultural. It also makes bodily ageing amenable to critical analysis and theorising. This chapter will show how theorising embodiment can provide us with the means to question assumptions about what becoming and being old might look and feel like, offering alternative perspectives and more satisfying, more humane ways of envisaging later life.This will be accomplished in four key steps. In the first step the key debates and conceptual developments that are constitutive of the sociology of the body, what has been referred to as the turn to the body in sociology, will be outlined.These will, in the second step, provide the springboard from which to consider the theoretical tools that have brought ageing and old bodies into visibility. In the third step, the chapter will show how these tools have led to the identification and examination of questions of identity and the lived experiences of becoming and being old. In the fourth step, the chapter will offer a reflection on the extent to which these developments enable us to rethink and re-imagine the social positioning of the old.