Human beings are born, they grow up, age and die just like other mammals, but these processes are interpreted and organized according to socio-cultural contexts that are very diverse, both in historical and contemporary societies. These contexts are deeply influential as humans go through a relatively long period in which they are dependent on others. They begin to absorb the specific culture in which they are born as soon as they begin to drink the milk that feeds them. Some fundamental cultural assets, such as language, take a long time to acquire but then, eventually, enable the competent speakers to participate more actively in their societies and develop the abilities that are usually associated with human autonomy.
(from International Handbook of Social Gerontology, 2010)
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Translated version of a keynote lecture given at the Annual Meeting of the Finnish Gerontological Society in Tampere (Finland) on January 30, 1998, as published in its scientific journal Gerontologia.
(from Gerontologia, 1998)
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This article focuses on the problem of social constitution which is seen as the principal theoretical challenge that is implicit in the different approaches to “critical gerontology”. The acknowledgement of a social constitution of both gerontology and aging contrasts with the conventional understanding of gerontology, which is dominated by an idealized concept of natural science as the representative of “objective” knowledge. In an analysis of recent developments in the philosophy, sociology and history of science it is shown that the problem of social constitution can no longer be avoided in theoretical reflection on gerontology. The theoretical and practical relevance of this problem is illustrated at different levels of analysis. These levels correspond partly with the different traditions that inspire the approaches to “critical gerontology”
(from Journal Of Aging Studies, 1991)
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As human aging is basically living (in) time, time is a fundamental, but also uncomfortably uprooting concept for aging studies. However, time is usually reduced to chronometric time; a mere measurement that has been emptied of the narratives that were traditionally part of it. This abstract and instrumental character implies that to become meaningful, chronometric time still depends on narratives. Not only are narratives needed to relate chronometric time to the world, they are also crucial to interrelate the dimensions of lived time: the past, the present and the future. As late modern aging takes place in multiform life worlds and in confrontation with a diversity of social systems, political and cultural macro-narratives play an important role in shaping situations and destinies of aging people. However, because of the prestigious exactness of chronometric time and the role it plays in calculations and statistics, narratives tend to creep in and remain hidden behind chronometric exactness. It is argued that micro-narratives remain important for empirical studies of aging as they articulate human experiences, but that narratives also play an increasingly important role in the interrelation between systemic worlds and life worlds. Therefore, narrative studies should seek more cooperation and critical discussion with disciplines that study macro developments such as sociology, economics or political science to clarify the role of macro-narratives in policies on aging. The article ends with a contemporary example of new systemic (debt)clocks which have a major impact on the lives of many citizens, especially the aged. Although these clocks remain dependent on specific macro-narratives their ominous ticking tends to hide them and to implode the debate about them.
(from International Journal of Ageing and Later Life, 2012)
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Die je kulturellen Bedingungen des Alterns und Alters in verschiedenen Ländern werfen auch ein Licht auf die Konstitution der Gerontologie. Jan Baars aus den Niederlanden, vor Jahren Gastdozent an der Universität Kassel, hinterfragt die oft nicht explizierten wissenschaftstheoretischen Axiome des Mainstreams in der internationalen Gerontologie und zeigt Ansätze einer Kritischen Gerontologie auf.
(from Kasseler Gerontologischen Schriften, 2003)
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