Rapid population aging, once associated with only a select group of modern industrialized nations, has now become a topic of increasing global concern. This volume reframes aging on a global scale by illustrating the multiple ways it is embedded within individual, social, and cultural life courses. It presents a broad range of ethnographic work, introducing a variety of conceptual and methodological approaches to studying life-course transitions in conjunction with broader sociocultural transformations. Through detailed accounts, in such diverse settings as nursing homes in Sri Lanka, a factory in Massachusetts, cemeteries in Japan and clinics in Mexico, the authors explore not simply our understandings of growing older, but the interweaving of individual maturity and intergenerational relationships, social and economic institutions, and intimate experiences of gender, identity, and the body.
Table of Contents:
PART I: FRAMEWORKS
Introduction: Transitions and Transformations: Paradigms, Perspectives, and Possibilities
Jason Danely and Caitrin Lynch
Chapter 1. Changes in the Life Course: Strengths and Stages
Mary Catherine Bateson
PART II: BODIES
Chapter 2. Narrating Pain and Seeking Continuity: A Life-Course Approach to Chronic Pain Management
Lindsey Martin
Chapter 3. Venting Anger From the Body During Gengnianqi: Meanings of Midlife Transition Among Chinese Women in Reform-Era Beijing
Jeanne L. Shea
Chapter 4. “I Don’t Want to Be Like My Father:” Masculinity, Modernity, and Intergenerational Relationships in Mexico
Emily Wentzell
PART III: SPATIALITY AND TEMPORALITY
Chapter 5. Shifting Moral Ideals of Aging in Poland: Suffering, Self-Actualization, and the Nation
Jessica C. Robbins
Chapter 6. A Window into Death: Euthanasia and End-of-Life in the Public-Private Space of the Dutch Home
Frances Norwood
Chapter 7. Temporality, Spirituality, and the Life Course in an Aging Japan
Jason Danely
PART IV: FAMILIES
Chapter 8. “I Have to Stay Healthy:” Elder Caregiving and the Third Age in a Brazilian Community
Diana De G. Brown
Chapter 9. Grandmothering in Life-Course Perspective: A Study of Puerto Rican Grandmothers Raising Grandchildren in the United States
Marta B. Rodríguez-Galán
Chapter 10. Care Work and Property Transfers: Intergenerational Family Obligations in Sri Lanka
Michele Ruth Gamburd
PART V: ECONOMIES
Chapter 11. Personhood, Appropriate Dependence, and the Rise of Eldercare Institutions in India
Sarah Lamb
Chapter 12. Membership and Mattering: Agency and Work in a New England Factory
Caitrin Lynch
Chapter 13. Life Courses of Indebtedness in Rural Nigeria
Jane I. Guyer and Kabiru K. Salami
Afterword: On Generations and Aging: “Fresh Contact” of a Different Sort
Jennifer Cole
Contributors’ Bios
Bibliography
About the Author :
Caitrin Lynch is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering and Visiting Research Associate in the Department of Anthropology at Brandeis University.
Review :
“This volume is full of good writing, lively situations, some wonderful photos, revealing quotes and simulating ideas. Its readability makes it appealing as a text to be used widely in the undergraduate/graduate classroom… the current volume makes for excellent reading and launches the new Berghahn book series admirably.” · Anthropology of Aging Quarterly Review
“…an important contribution to the field...excellent chapters within a comprehensive anthropological framework that touches on an increasingly important global demographic trend. The book counters the universalizing tendency of some disciplines to model aging after Western lifestyles.” · Philip B. Stafford, University of Indiana
“This is a well-crafted volume and an important addition to the literature on aging and the life course. It provides an invaluable cross-cultural perspective that emphasizes how the life course is framed within a cultural context and how cultures change over time. The chapters focus on a large number of ethnographic cases and are organized well for use by students or professionals wanting an updated overview.” · Dena Shenk, University of North Carolina Charlotte
“This volume is a welcome addition to [the literature], particularly because it speaks to concerns in the cross-cultural study of aging and in anthropology. It was a pleasure to read.” · Peter Collings, University of Florida
