The challenge of cultural gerontology

Abstract

Over the last decade, Cultural Gerontology has emerged as one of the most vibrant elements of writing about age (Twigg, J., & Martin, W. (Eds.) (2015). The Routledge handbook of cultural gerontology. London: Routledge). Reflecting the wider Cultural Turn, it has expanded the field of gerontology beyond all recognition. No longer confined to frailty, or the dominance of medical and social welfare perspectives, cultural gerontology addresses the nature and experience of later years in the widest sense. In this review, we will explore how the Cultural Turn, which occurred across the social sciences and humanities in the late 20th century, came to influence age studies. We will analyze the impulses that led to the emergence of the field and the forces that have inhibited or delayed its development. We will explore how cultural gerontology has recast aging studies, widening its theoretical and substantive scope, taking it into new territory intellectually and politically, presenting this in terms of 4 broad themes that characterize the work: subjectivity and identity; the body and embodiment; representation and the visual; and time and space. Finally, we will briefly address whether there are problems in the approach.