European Network in Aging Studies

Last updated
European Network in Aging Studies
FoundersCenter for Gender and Diversity; Center for Inter-American Studies; Women, Ageing and Media Research Group; Grup Dedal-Lit; NISAL; German Aging Studies Group
HeadquartersGraz, Austria
MethodsCultural studies, Qualitative research
Official language
English, German

The European Network in Aging Studies (ENAS) is a research network that connects researchers interested in the study of cultural aging. The parallel network in North America is called the North-American Network in Aging Studies. Both networks (ENAS and NANAS) aim to facilitate cooperation among their existing members as well as with new collaborators. [1] [2]

Contents

History

ENAS was first established in 2010 within the framework of the project 'Live to be a Hundred: The Cultural Fascination with Longevity'. The European Network in Aging Studies was re-launched as a formal international association at the end of this project. [3] The inaugural ENAS conference was held in 2011 at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands. [4] Entitled 'Theorizing Age: Challenging the Disciplines', it aimed at building bridges across the circuits of sciences and humanities. [5]

Mission

By facilitating collaboration between researchers and focussing on cultural aging, ENAS contributes to fighting ageism, which has many negative effects (e.g. unsatisfactory intergenerational ties, cumulative negative health effects). [6] Indeed, health research experts state that a humanities expertise is needed to expand current understandings of old age and the impacts of ageism. They explain that organizations like ENAS will help foster such collaborations: "Organizations such as the Gerontological Society of America, the European Network in Aging Studies, and the North American Network in Aging Studies can facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration." [7] The Routledge Handbook of Cultural Gerontology mentions ENAS as an example of the increasing acceptance of transdisciplinarity between literary studies and gerontology. [8] In age studies, ENAS is presented as a way forward to "gather, cluster, and aggregate together the scattered people, ideas, publications, and energies now fomenting scholarly and social change in the aging scene". [9]

Cultural aging

Cultural age is defined not only as a biological function nor a calendar mark, but also as all the meanings ascribed to categories of age across different places and times. It takes into account the diverse realities of aging including how it intersects with disability, gender, ethnicity, race, sexuality, class, etc. Researchers use narrative, performative, and materiality approaches to study age. For example, they analyze representations (e.g. autobiography, fiction), cultural scripts connected to life stages, as well as the ways people manage the physical changes that come with age. [10]

Scholarly activities

ENAS is a series editor. It produces books about the cultural study of aging. [11] ENAS holds conferences and offers summer schools. Its members collaborate to their partners' projects, for example 'Act your age', a project centered on aging bodies and dance. [12] They have many ongoing projects about the cultural narratives of longevity, the media and identity formation, healthy aging, gender and literature, and online dating. [13]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gerontology</span> Study of the social, psychological and biological aspects of aging

Gerontology is the study of the social, cultural, psychological, cognitive, and biological aspects of aging. The word was coined by Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov in 1903, from the Greek γέρων (gérōn), meaning "old man", and -λογία (-logía), meaning "study of". The field is distinguished from geriatrics, which is the branch of medicine that specializes in the treatment of existing disease in older adults. Gerontologists include researchers and practitioners in the fields of biology, nursing, medicine, criminology, dentistry, social work, physical and occupational therapy, psychology, psychiatry, sociology, economics, political science, architecture, geography, pharmacy, public health, housing, and anthropology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Population ageing</span> Increasing median age in a population

Population ageing is an increasing median age in a population because of declining fertility rates and rising life expectancy. Most countries have rising life expectancy and an ageing population, trends that emerged first in developed countries but are now seen in virtually all developing countries. In most developed countries, the phenomenon of population aging began to gradually emerge in the late 19th century. The aging of the world population occurred in the late 20th century, with the proportion of people aged 65 and above accounting for 6% of the total population. This reflects the overall decline in the world's fertility rate at that time. That is the case for every country in the world except the 18 countries designated as "demographic outliers" by the United Nations. The aged population is currently at its highest level in human history. The UN predicts the rate of population ageing in the 21st century will exceed that of the previous century. The number of people aged 60 years and over has tripled since 1950 and reached 600 million in 2000 and surpassed 700 million in 2006. It is projected that the combined senior and geriatric population will reach 2.1 billion by 2050. Countries vary significantly in terms of the degree and pace of ageing, and the UN expects populations that began ageing later will have less time to adapt to its implications.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to life extension:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gerontological nursing</span> Specialty of nursing pertaining to older adults

Gerontological nursing is the specialty of nursing pertaining to older adults. Gerontological nurses work in collaboration with older adults, their families, and communities to support healthy aging, maximum functioning, and quality of life. The term gerontological nursing, which replaced the term geriatric nursing in the 1970s, is seen as being more consistent with the specialty's broader focus on health and wellness, in addition to illness.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Suresh Rattan</span> Indian biogerontologist

Suresh Rattan is a biogerontologist – a researcher in the field of biology of ageing, biogerontology.

Michael Uebel, a pioneer in the application of psychological insights to the historical intersections of social, personal, and imaginative phenomena, is a psychotherapist and researcher in Austin, Texas. He has taught literature and critical theory at the University of Virginia, at Georgetown University, where he taught in the Communication, Culture, and Technology Program and the English Department, and at the University of Kentucky, where he held a faculty position in the Department of English, and was affiliated with the Committee on Social Theory and Women’s Studies. As of 2012, Uebel has been appointed Lecturer in the School of Social Work at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author and/or editor of three major studies and the author of over 40 journal essays and encyclopedia articles. Uebel lectures nationally and internationally on issues concerning social history, mental health, and the challenges of humanism. In 2009, he co-founded the Interdependence Project-Austin, a branch of the New York city-based nonprofit organization (IDP) dedicated to fostering the intersection of the arts, activism, and contemplative traditions. Uebel serves as Director of Contemplative Studies.

Ageing is the process of becoming older. The term refers mainly to humans, many other animals, and fungi, whereas for example, bacteria, perennial plants and some simple animals are potentially biologically immortal. In a broader sense, ageing can refer to single cells within an organism which have ceased dividing, or to the population of a species.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sarah Harper</span> British gerontologist

Sarah Harper FRAI CBE is a British gerontologist, who established Oxford's Institute of Population Ageing, and became the University of Oxford's first Professor of Gerontology. She served on the Prime Minister's Council for Science and Technology between 2014 and 2017 and in 2017 was appointed Director of the Royal Institution of Great Britain. Sarah was appointed a CBE in 2018 for services to the Science of Demography.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sara Arber</span> British sociologist and Professor

Sara Lynne Arber is a British sociologist and Professor at University of Surrey. Arber has previously held the position of President of the British Sociological Association (1999–2001) and Vice-President of the European Sociological Association (2005–2007). She is well known for her work on gender and ageing, inequalities in health and has pioneered research in the new field of sociology of sleep.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eline Slagboom</span>

P. Eline Slagboom is a Dutch biologist specializing in the human familial longevity and ageing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margaret Morganroth Gullette</span>

Margaret Morganroth Gullette is a resident scholar at the Women's Studies Research Center at Brandeis University. She is a writer of nonfiction, an essayist, and activist. Her contributions to the field of cultural studies of age include four books, the latest of which is Agewise: Fighting the New Ageism in America (2011).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kim Sawchuk</span> Canadian philosopher

Kim Sawchuk is a professor in the Department of Communication Studies, Research Chair in Mobile Media Studies, and Associate Dean of Research and Graduate Studies at Concordia University in Montreal Canada. A feminist media studies scholar, Sawchuk's research spans the fields of art, gender, and culture, examining the intersection of technology into peoples lives and how that changes as one ages.

Joao Pedro De Magalhaes is a Portuguese molecular biologist. He studies aging through both computational and experimental approaches.

Ageing studies is a field of theoretically, politically, and empirically engaged cultural analysis that has been developed by scholars from many different disciplines. In recent years, the field of ageing studies has flourished, with a growing number of scholars paying attention to the cultural implications of population ageing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LGBT ageing</span> Issues and concerns of older LGBTQ people

LGBT ageing addresses issues and concerns related to the ageing of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. Older LGBT people are marginalised by: a) younger LGBT people, because of ageism; and b) by older age social networks because of homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, heteronormativity, heterosexism, prejudice and discrimination towards LGBT people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kathleen Woodward</span> American academic

Kathleen Woodward is an American academic. She is a Lockwood Professor in Humanities and in English at the University of Washington and has been the Director of the Simpson Center for the Humanities since 2000. Her areas of specialization include 20th-century American literature and culture; discourse of the emotions; technology and science studies; and age studies; digital humanities; and gender, women, and sexuality studies. She is working on risk in the context of globalization and population aging. Her writing talks about the invisibility status of older women and she advocates for an arena of visibility.

Kaarin Anstey is an Australian Laureate Fellow and one of Australia's top dementia scientists. She is Co-Deputy Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research (CEPAR) at the University of New South Wales, Australia, where she is Scientia Professor of Psychology. Kaarin Anstey is an Honorary Professor at the Australian National University and a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. She is a Director of the NHMRC Dementia Centre for Research Collaboration, Senior Principal Research Scientist at NeuRA and leads the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Cognitive Health and the UNSW Ageing Futures Institute.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rose Anne Kenny</span> Irish geriatrician, neuroscientist and cardiologist

Rose Anne Kenny is an Irish geriatrician. She is the Regius Professor of Physic and a professor of medical gerontology at Trinity College Dublin (TCD), director of the Falls and Black-out Unit at St James's Hospital in Dublin, director of the Mercer's Institute for Successful Ageing and founding principal investigator for The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA). She was admitted in 2014 to the Royal Irish Academy in recognition of academic excellence and achievement. Kenny is a fellow of Trinity College Dublin and of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of Ireland, London and Edinburgh.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pearl Dykstra</span> Dutch social scientist

Pearl A. Dykstra is a Dutch social scientist with a background in sociology, psychology, gerontology and demography. She is a specialist on intergenerational solidarity, aging societies, family change, aging and the life course, and loneliness.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International Longevity Alliance</span> International nonprofit organization

The International Longevity Alliance (ILA) is an international nonprofit organization that is a platform for interaction between regional organizations that support anti-aging technologies, usually at the administrative and popularization levels.

References

  1. ↑ Ulla Kriebernegg, Roberta Maierhofer, Barbara Ratzenböck (eds.) (2014). Alive and Kicking at All Ages. Transcript Verlag.
  2. ↑ ENAS website http://www.agingstudies.eu/
  3. ↑ "ENAS - home". www.agingstudies.eu. Retrieved 2021-05-03.
  4. ↑ Ulla Kriebernegg, Roberta Maierhofer, Barbara Ratzenböck (eds.) (2014). Alive and Kicking at All Ages. Transcript Verlag.
  5. ↑ Aagje Swinnen & Cynthia Port, Aging, narrative, and performance: essays from the humanities, International Journal of Ageing and Later Life, 2012 7(2): 9 15, https://doi.org/10.3384/ijal.1652-8670.1272a1 .
  6. ↑ Leni Marshall (2014). Thinking Differently About Aging: Changing Attitudes Through the Humanities. doi: 10.1093/geront/gnu069
  7. ↑ Findings on Gerontology Reported by Investigators at University of Wisconsin, Health and Medicine Week, September 11, 2015, http://0-www.biblio.eureka.cc.mercury.concordia.ca/WebPages/Document/DocActionPrintSave.aspx?DocActionType=2&SaveFormat=4&DocContentType=2&ContainerType=3&Sort=.
  8. ↑ Twigg, Julia; Martin, Wendy (2015-06-12). Routledge Handbook of Cultural Gerontology. Routledge. ISBN   978-1-136-22103-3.
  9. ↑ Stephen Katz, What is Age Studies, Age, Culture, Humanities, 2014, issue 1, online: http://ageculturehumanities.org/WP/what-is-age-studies/.
  10. ↑ Aagje Swinnen & Cynthia Port, Aging, narrative, and performance: essays from the humanities, International Journal of Ageing and Later Life, 2012 7(2): 9 15, http://www.ep.liu.se/ej/ijal/2012/v7/i2/a01/ijal12v7i2a01.pdf.
  11. ↑ "ENAS - home".
  12. ↑ Act your age http://www.actyourage.eu/en/partners/partner/european-network-in-aging-studies
  13. ↑ "ENAS - home". www.agingstudies.eu. Retrieved 2021-05-03.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.