Rethinking Social Theory & Later Life

This book aims to provide a critical reflection on existing epistemologies of ageing and alternatively, introduce post-structuralist insights to ageing studies and later life. We will examine how ageing appears to be individualised in neo-liberal western culture. It can be argued that whilst ageing has become individualised, the limitation of existing epistemologies is in their ontological war with each other: positive ageing versus social oppression. What this book seeks to do is to provide an alternative exploration of ageing by introducing post-structuralist theory using two themes of ‘narrative’ (stories of ageing) and ‘trust’ (relations of ageing) – both as exemplar social issues and conceptual tools. Indeed, we need to ask what are the conditions which allow narrative and trust to be formed and performed relating to ageing. It is within the processes of categorisation that established social life as the ‘social arena’ within which the issues of social problems were to be debated needs theoretical reflection.