[Age assemblages : Sociotechnical innovations and successful age(ing) from the perspective of material gerontology]. / Altersassemblagen : Soziotechnische Innovationen und gelingendes Alter(n) aus der Perspektive der materiellen Gerontologie.
Z Gerontol Geriatr
; 57(2): 91-96, 2024 Mar.
Article
in De
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-38376556
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
Individual-centered approaches have for a long time defined the gerontological involvement with technology. Despite an approach that expands in terms of space (e.g., neighborhood approaches) or social networks (e.g., caring communities), these approaches are characterized by centering on people as working alone. Material gerontological approaches attempt to theoretically and empirically address this entanglement of humans and technology by decentralizing the human and conceptualizing agency as being distributed among human and nonhuman agents.OBJECTIVE:
Drawing on ongoing debates in material gerontology a concept of age assemblages is developed with which age(ing) can be understood as a process distributed between older people, objects, technologies and spaces. At the same time this involves how such theoretical concepts can be applied in the practice of sociotechnical innovations in order to promote successful ageing. MATERIAL ANDMETHODS:
Based on various empirical research studies, the article exemplifies a material gerontological perspective. RESULTS ANDDISCUSSION:
It is shown how an expansion of gerontology towards more than human worlds of age(ing) can be conceived. The focus is on (1) a decentralization of age(ing) towards "age assemblages", (2) a broadening of the individual human to a distributed more than human agency and, as a result, (3) a shift in the boundaries of research phenomena in gerontology. The article closes with reflections on what the developed concept of age assemblages means for gerontological research and practice.Key words
Full text:
1
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Geriatrics
Limits:
Aged
/
Humans
Language:
De
Year:
2024
Type:
Article