Aging

Speaking of aging does not mean describing a simple biological process. Rather, it means entering a complex territory where cultural visions, social expectations, welfare policies, care economies, and collective representations of the aging body all intersect.

Throughout the twentieth century and the early decades of the twenty-first, various theories have attempted to define what it means to “age well.” Yet behind each of these models lie very different ideas about what matters in life, about the value attributed to older individuals, and about the role they are expected to play in society.

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The purpose of the discussion that follows is not to determine which theory is the most appropriate, nor to propose an alternative normative model. Instead, the aim is to show how each conception of aging is rooted in a specific historical and cultural climate, and how these ideas continue to shape—often silently and invisibly—our perceptions of the aging body, our expectations, and the possibilities we imagine for ourselves.

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What will emerge is that aging is neither a neutral biological destiny nor a universal, linear trajectory, but a field of forces in which profound individual and collective questions are negotiated. Ultimately, the question that concerns us all is both simple and radical:

how do we want to inhabit the later time of life?