Successful Aging as a Contemporary Obsession, edited by Sarah Lamb, is a timely, thought-provoking collection of sociological and anthropological studies that critically tackles the neoliberal, Global North paradigm of healthy-active-successful aging. The authors are reputable scholars in the field of aging studies and/or medical anthropology, who have spent their careers investigating the various cultural understandings and practices of aging meaningfully.
‘Successful aging’ is understood here, as elsewhere in Lamb’s (2014) writings, to refer to a cultural-historical model of growing old, deeply ingrained in philosophical principles of individualistic personhood, bio-political ideologies of aging as a controllable process rather than a normal life stage, and neoliberal values of productivity in later life. Although intending to create a positive view of old age, the paradigm of successful aging ironically ends up, as some of the contributors argue, reinforcing ageist attitudes by “pursuing the goals of agelessness and avoiding oldness” (p. 7).
The book does not set out to target directly the tensions and contradictions inherent in the very model and practices of the successful aging ideology; rather, the contributors take a reverse approach. The failures implied by ‘successful aging’ (i.e. being interdependent, relying on families and communities, frailty and decline, both physical and cognitive) are presented as alternative and, more often than not, desirable ways of aging. In this respect, the book does not demonize the ‘successful aging’ movement as altogether wrong – “Who wouldn’t want to be healthy, active, fulfilled, and successful?” (p. 3). Instead, it aims “to ask such questions [about frailty and vulnerabilities that are independent of individual action], not to offer easy answers but to invite critical dialogue on a wider set of possibilities for imagining what it is to live meaningfully in later life” (p. XII.)
The contributions are organized in four parts: “Gender, sexuality, and the allure of anti-aging”; “Ideals of independence, interdependence, and intimate sociality in later life”; “National policies and everyday practices: Individual and collective projects of aging well”; and “Medicine, morality, and self: Lessons from life’s ends”. These titles allude to the major parameters of the bio-political and philosophical paradigm of successful-aging in late life (i.e. gender and sexuality; autonomy and independence; global and national political agendas; biomedicalization and end of life), but the authors go beyond these theories to point to everyday practices of challenging, negotiating and creating alternative modes of aging meaningfully. These practices not only deny the uniformizing character of the contemporary paradigm, as the cultural and individual differences presented vary greatly, but they also destigmatise frailty, which is antithetical to an ideology of aging focused on maintaining able/unchanging bodies and minds throughout the life course.
The authors’ implicit critiques of this paradigm frequently point to the gendered, hetero-normative and individualistic character of what is considered to be successful aging. For example, in North America, older women are pressured to maintain their youthful bodily appearance, while men, whose signs of aging, such as grey hair, are considered appealing, find themselves expected to maintain sexual functionality all the way into late life (chapter 1). The feminine model of successful aging contains similar contradictions: while some women view ‘choosing’ not to maintain a youthful appearance as a condemnable example of self-neglect, others find the refusal of cosmetic intervention, and corresponding opportunity for self-exploration beyond youthful beauty norms and bodily appearance, liberating (chapter 2). In intersection with gender, the authors further explore the hetero-normative ‘white’ character of the successful aging ideology with an account of African-American lesbians and gay men who must contend with ageism as yet another type of discrimination over the course of their lives (chapter 3). The extreme relativity of what it means to age ‘successfully’ is further problematized by models of ‘successful failure’ in other cultures. For example, in Mexico, some men embrace erectile disfunction in late life as a moral opportunity to engage in deeper, more responsible, and more affectionate relations with family, rather than understanding it as a shameful malfunction to be fixed (chapter 4).
Through other empirical cases, the authors expose various articulations of the concept, ‘aging in place’. Practices of professional-assisted care, for example, foreground the independence experienced by many late-life Chicagoans still residing in their own homes (chapter 5). This form of silenced (inter-) independence, while highly valued by the older beneficiaries, obscures burgeoning social stratification in the realms of health, economics and ethnic status. Some professional care-givers put their own health, financial remuneration, and immigration status second to their clients’ needs for comfort, independence, and autonomy. This self-disregard, in turn, can affect the care-givers’ own potential for ‘successfully aging’, by increasing their likelihood of impairment, economic insecurity, and residence distant from support networks later in life. When studied through the network of a religious community, such as Catholic nuns (chapter 6), the carer-cared dyad is understood in terms of valuing one’s (permanent) personhood and autonomy—fundamental aspects of successful aging—on a relational basis: the relations within the community of faith that continue after death. In a spiritual community that is experienced as extending past physical death, the personhood of an older individual, eve