This Article Full Text (OnlineFirst PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by McDaniel, S. A. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Challenging Gerontology's Empirical Molehills: A Response to Powell

University of Utah, Salt Lake City

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: susan.mcdaniel{at}ipia.utah.edu.

	Abstract

Gerontology and theory have long been intellectually separate, with empirical studies dominant. Marrying Foucauldian theory, as Powell proposes, with gerontology is clever, timely and potentially fruitful for policy, practice and research. Although Foucault had little to say about age, his insights on power and on bodies are profoundly relevant to the process of ageing. Powell’s proposed application of a Foucauldian toolkit to caring for older people, enables the opening of insights into both the cared for and the carers, the latter of whom are differentially disadvantaged as well by gender, ethnicity, class and often immigration status. Viewed through Foucault’s concept of power, ageing population is observed as a fiction, justifying all manner of policy panics and woes that may not exist as actual challenges. Foucault’s concepts of power, identity, regulation, resistance and the bodily as socially shaped, have transformed sociology. A similar transformation of gerontology would be welcome.

First published on April 6, 2009
Journal of Applied Gerontology 2009, doi:10.1177/0733464809333550


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?