NotNormativelyHuman 231
faculties. Taken together, these make up the etiology of aging and the
research agenda of gerontology. As Biggs and Powell point out: "This
has led to a skewing of gerontological theorizing and research towards
geriatric medicine and the relative failure of more broadly based social
and life course approaches to impinge upon thinking about old age"
(95).^71 One of the ways in which gerontologists have sought to
overcome this skewed perspective and the problematization of later life
it reinforces is by directing the attention of their discipline to new,
positive models of self-determination in later life.^72 I will address these
inthesectionimmediatelyfollowingthisone.
Eventhough"formanyyearsgerontologicalresearchwasconcerned
nearlyexclusivelywithproblemsofagingandoldageand,inhindsight,
clearly contributed to the problematization of old age from which
gerontology is only now recovering" (Baltes and Carstensen 212),
gerontological inquiry has in more ways than could be tabulated here
beenahighlyproductivesite,attentivealsotopossiblealternative"age"
identities, on both the individual and collective levels. Concerning the
latter, the sub-discipline of social gerontology has been contouring in
carefuldetailtheparametersthroughwhichnormative"age"functionsin
societies past and present and also in a globally comparative way
(Cohen 9, 20, 38; Kunow, "Old Age and Globalization" 295-310).
Moreover, research in this field has often impacted social policy
(^71) Forthepurposesofthepresentargument,thedifferencesbetweengerontology
andgeriatrics("thebranchofmedicinededicatedtothepromotionofhealthand
the prevention and treatment of disease in later life" ["AGS' History" n. pag.])
are only incidental and will for this reason not be reflected in the following
pages.
(^72) While these resonances have largely been neglected by mainstream
gerontology,they arecentralforthecriticalgerontologyadumbratedby,among
others, Thomas R.Cole and Stephen Katz. Katz argues that "[i]n the nineteenth
century,... [t]he aged body became the articulation point for social, scientific,
and practical discourses about old age. Hence, the disciplining of knowledge
about old age followed from the disciplining of aged bodies" (DiscipliningOld
Age22);cf.alsohissuggestionsthat"thehistoricalmedicalizationofbodies...
created knowledges that also overflowed original motives and scientific
orientations, spilling into domains of humanitarianism, reform, and popular
culture"(D iscipliningOldAge48).