230 RüdigerKunow
socialframeworksofelderlife,inpoliciesandprograms,increasinglyso
onaglobalscale(Cohen20).
It must be emphasized that more often than not, gerontological
research not only has systematized old age (both as collective category
and object of scholarly inquiry) but has done so in a way in which
description is linked with prescription in a very effective, normalizing
way. In the perspective thus authorized, "age" is predominantly
characterized by physical decline and incurred losses in the arena of
personal relationships (Birren 466; Gullette,Declining to Decline197;
Segal 17). Seen through the disciplinary lens of gerontology, late life
becomesvisibleprimarilyasaproblemor,perhapsbetter,acongeriesof
problemswhicharethenormalaccompanimentsoftheprogressoftime.
Gerontology's principal disciplinary investiture has therefore been
with the physiological processes occurring in organisms, primarily of
coursethehumanbody,atacertaintemporaljuncture:"thedeteriorative
cascade of physiological changes that we characterize as senescence
does not become readily apparent until well into or beyond the
reproductive period" (Cristofalo et al. 98, 101). In this perspective, it is
quite normal for human beings (as for other forms of organic life) to
succumb to a series of processes identified as "age,"^70 most
pronouncedly physiological deterioration and loss of elementary
(^70) Thisisthebackgroundalsoagainstwhichsomecounter-hegemonicstrandsof
Gerontological inquiry have developed. The common denominator of such
inquiries might be found in their shared interest to provide material which can
counter the "dominance of images of dependency which take away the adult
status and personhood of the elderly" (Featherstone and Wernick 7) in U.S.-
AmericanandotherWesterncultures.Onekeyareawithcloselinksto"age"as
cultural form and norm goes by the name "compensation theory," and is often
associatedwiththeworkofLauraCarstensenofStanfordUniversityandthelate
Paul Baltes, director of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development,
Berlin, co-editor of the Berlin Age Study. Compensation theory generally starts
from the assumption that people respond to their social and cultural
marginalization in active and inventive ways: "The theory of selective
optimization with compensation (SOC) is one illustration of such endeavors.
This theory, with its focus on maintaining functioning in a restricted domain of
life, permits individualized solutions, and an integrative perspective across
levels of analysis (individual, social, institutional), as well as a conceptual
platformforcombiningtheorywithpractice"(BaltesandSmith114).