Active and Successful Aging. Lifestyle as a Gerontological Idea
Sociologists Georg Simmel and Max Weber conceived the idea of lifestyle to identify the social connections between individualism and consumerism that emerged with modernity. Pierre Bourdieu, Anthony Giddens and others have given lifestyle critical relevance in their work by including questions of ag...
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| Publicat a: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/rsa, |
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| Autor principal: | |
| Format: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Idioma: | Anglais |
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Recherches sociologiques et anthropologiques
2013
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| Matèries: | |
| Accés en línia: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Sumari: | Sociologists Georg Simmel and Max Weber conceived the idea of lifestyle to identify the social connections between individualism and consumerism that emerged with modernity. Pierre Bourdieu, Anthony Giddens and others have given lifestyle critical relevance in their work by including questions of agency and structure in post-traditional society. However, the idea of lifestyle has also become central to gerontological studies and the caring professions around aging and their models of “active” and “successful” aging. At the same time, such models have neglected the theoretical and critical value of lifestyle as a concept for understanding age inequalities and the social determinants of health in later life. This article revisits the story of lifestyle in order to reinstate its importance to aging studies. The conclusion considers the example of falling for older people to illustrate how such a crucial issue is also an opportunity to think about lifestyle in critical and reflexive terms. |
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