Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

An examination of the effects of culture and ethnicity on the aging process and the treatment of the aged. Although the orientation of the course is cross-cultural and comparative, particular emphasis will be placed on the social aspects of aging among various ethnic groups in contemporary Canada.

COURSE DETAILS:

It is not a tragedy to age and grow old. And yet in many nations of the world old age is increasingly understood in catastrophic terms of dependency and loss. Why is this the case? What are the circumstances that sever life's foundational narrative from the entire human life-cycle? In the case of North America, Western Europe and globally the cultural values of youth, consumerism and individualism have played a major role in devaluing the status of the aged rendering them into a service population. But this is not the whole narrative. Anthropologists and scholars from other disciplines have brought to the fore nuanced perspectives arguing that ultimately age and the process of aging are determined as much by political and economic factors as by the value systems of societies and ethnic groups around the world. Scholars have highlighted the importance of critical analysis and interdisciplinary research that speak to the experiences and life circumstances of the aged. Older women and men from different cultural backgrounds present theoretical and methodological challenges to what has been a western/Orientalist study of the elderly in other societies.  

A politicized critique on the re-formulation of knowledge along with methodology will be covered in two interrelated parts. First, we will examine cross-cultural and gendered perspectives with special attention to topical concerns such as the political economy of aging, health, intergenerational relationships, sociality, transnational perspectives and the culture of institutionalized and palliative care. The second part of the course will be exploratory to accommodate case studies from different societies. We will identify examples for nuanced understanding of the process of aging at multiple "sites" in relation to the intersectional paradigm of class, gender, and citizenship.  We will focus on the reconstruction of meaning on what it is like to age within and across cultural, social and political boundaries. An informing theme of the course will be re-formulation of social knowledge on aging, palliative care and end-of-life conversations in relation to the larger processes of globalization and neoliberalism.  

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

By the end of this course, students should be able to:

• Acquire an understanding of the theoretical and methodological challenges surrounding age and aging 
• Appreciate the knowledge base generated through particular case studies 
• Acquire a critical understanding of the ways in which ethnicity, age and culture reveal societal issues 
• Develop a keen awareness on research accountability and collaborative activism 
• Design and carry out field research

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING: