The Cultural Context of Aging

Worldwide Perspectives

Jay Sokolovsky

• Publisher: Praeger
• Year: 2020
• Edition: 4
• eBook ISBN:
  9781440852022
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Ethnopsychology
• Index: Psychology

From the laughing clubs of India and robotic granny minders of Japan to the "Flexsecurity" system of Denmark and the elderscapes of Florida, experts in this collection bring readers cutting-edge and future-focused approaches to our aging population worldwide.

In this fourth edition of an award-winning text on the consequences of global aging, a team of expert anthropologists and other social scientists presents the issues and possible solutions as our population over age 60 rises to double that of the year 2000. Chapters describe how the consequences of global aging will influence life in the 21st century in relation to biological limits on the human life span, cultural construction of the life cycle, generational exchange and kinship, makeup of households and community, and attitudes toward disability and death.

This completely revised edition includes 20 new chapters covering China, Japan, Denmark, India, West and East Africa, Indonesia, Mexico, Peru, indigenous Amazonia, rural Italy, and the ethnic landscape of the United States. A popular feature is an integrated set of web book chapters listed in the contents, discussed in chapter introductions, and available on the book's web site.

Table of contents

• Cover page
• Halftitle page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction: A 21st-Century Global Perspective on Aging and Human Maturity in Cultural Context
• PART I A Global Vision of Aging, Culture, and Context
• Introduction
• chapter one Global Aging in the New Millennium
• chapter two Web Book: ComplaintDiscourse, Aging, and Caregiving among the Ju’hoansi of Botswana—with 2018 Update
• chapter three Web Book: Beyond the Grandmother Hypothesis
• chapter four “You Don’t Have to Act or Feel Old”
• chapter five Web Book: Culture and the Meaning of a Good Old Age
• chapter six Web Book: From Successful Aging to Conscious Aging
• chapter seven Web Book: Menopause
• chapter eight Trans(gender)/Gender-Diverse Aging
• chapter nine Web Book: Is Killing Necessarily Murder?
• PART II The Life Course and Intergenerational Ties in Cultural and Global Context
• Introduction
• chapter ten Aging and Society in the New Life Course
• chapter eleven Ethnography, Technology Design, and the Future of “Aging in Place”
• chapter twelve Imagining Institutional Care, Practicing Domestic Care
• chapter thirteen Eldersourcing and Reconceiving Work as Care
• chapter fourteen Web Book Photo Essay: Curriculum Vitae
• chapter fifteen Web Book: Images of Aging
• chapter sixteen Web Book: Intergenerational Sites
• chapter seventeen Web Book: Global Perspectives on Widowhood and Aging
• chapter eighteen Web Book: Grandparenting Styles
• PART III Aging, Globalization, and Societal Transformation
• Introduction
• chapter nineteen Web Book: Aging and the Age of Globalization
• chapter twenty Communities of Care and Zones of Abandonment in “Super-Aged” Japan
• chapter twenty-one Narrating the Future
• chapter twenty-two Globalizing Late Life in China and Realigning the State, Family, and Market Interests for Eldercare
• chapter twenty-three Web Book: “One to One” and “Five by One”
• chapter twenty-four Indigenous Mexican Elders Engage the 21st Century
• chapter twenty-five Aging after Socialism
• PART IV Cultural Diversity and the Ethnic Dimension in Aging: Culture, Context, and Creativity
• chapter twenty-six Migrant Elders and the Limits of Family Support in a Globalizing World
• chapter twenty-seven Detroit African Americans Fishing for Food and Heritage
• chapter twenty-eight Web Book: Fare insieme
• chapter twenty-nine “Demasiado fuerte” (Too Tough)
• chapter thirty Ancestral Landscapes of Culture
• chapter thirty-one Web Book: Battling a New Epidemic
• chapter thirty-two Web Book: Losing, Using, and Crafting Spaces for Aging
• chapter thirty-three Web Book: Aging in Exile
• chapter thirty-four Web Book: Age of Wisdom
• PART V Age-Friendly Communities, Kinscripts, Families, and Elderscapes: Transforming Cultural Spaces for Aging
• Introduction
• chapter thirty-five Web Book: The Structural Vulnerability of Older People in a Matrilineal Society
• chapter thirty-six Old People Everywhere
• chapter thirty-seven Web Book Photo Essay: Working Together across Generations
• chapter thirty-eight Web Book: Growing Older in World Cities
• chapter thirty-nine Old Age Homes, Love, and Other New Cultures of Aging in Middle-Class India
• chapter forty Gray as Green
• chapter forty-one Web Book: Spaces of Age—About the Elderscapes of Charlotte County, Florida
• chapter forty-two Web Book: An Organization for the Elderly, by the Elderly
• chapter forty-three Web Book Photo Essay: “Where Are the Bonesin Their Noses?”
• PART VI The Quest for Gerontopia: Culture and Health in Late Life
• Introduction
• chapter forty-four Beyond the Blue Zones
• chapter forty-five The New Frontier of Robotics in the Lives of Elders
• chapter forty-six “Train Yourself Free”
• chapter forty-seven Web Book Photo Essay: Female Mutual Support in Kyoto and Kampala
• chapter forty-eight Web Book: Keeping the Elderly Alive
• chapter forty-nine Triangles of Care in Transnational Spaces of Aging
• chapter fifty The Extended Body
• chapter fifty-one Web Book Photo Essay: “Differently Young” and “Non autosufficienti ”
• chapter fifty-two Web Book: Heroic Stories of Dementia Care
• chapter fifty-three Web Book: Beyond the Institution
• chapter fifty-four Web Book: The Future of Aging in Postindustrial Context
• chapter fifty-five Web Book: Between Humans and Ghosts
• About the Editor and Contributors
• Index