NotNormativelyHuman 247
relations" (Empire24). Thus, a cultural critique of "age" must engage
alsothepublicdomaininwhichsuchbiopoliticsevolves.
Late life is enfolded in governance in multiple and contradictory
ways. As a meaningful address for a specially demarcated cohort of
peoplepresumablyinneedofgeneralattention,"age"enteredthepublic
sphereataboutthetimewhenthenationstatesintheGlobalNorth,after
their external, territorial consolidation during the 18th century,
proceeded to consolidate also their internal domains. In this historical
perspective, late life has been the site where state-building and body-
building, the construction of a public sphere or action and that of the
human life course converge and collide (Rosenberg and Fitzpatrick 8).
Theprocessesbywhichthebodyinitslaterlifeceasedtobeapersonal
matter and was progressively recruited into the realm of the social can
beregardedasaresponsetoproblemsdiscussedintheprevioussection:
thepathologizationofoldagebythebiomedicalandsocialsciences.As
"age" became a "problem," the nation state proceededto provide an
"answer."
This answer consisted of a series of administrative measures which
selectivelyidentifiedagroupofcitizensandpositionedthemasobjects,
wards of government policies: "political and discursive technologies,
such as retirement and the social survey, differentiated the elderly as a
special kind of population characterized by its neediness and poverty"
(Katz,DisicipliningOldAge8; Katz and McHugh 270; Gabrielson and
Parady 376; Laws 93-100). The reference here to "need" is not
coincidental as the governmentalization of later life was resourced
culturally by the ideology of the "deserving poor." This term came into
useinVictorianEnglandandsomewhatlaterintheUnitedStateswhere
itdesignatedrespectablepeoplewho,throughnofaultoftheirown,had
fallen on hard times. The elderly were particularly vulnerable in this
regard, especially as industrialization and urbanization often removed
themfromthetraditionalsupportbynext-of-kinandcreated"anelderly
proletariat" (Cole and Edwards 224-29; Lawson and Lawson 110-13).
Just as "age" came to the attention of biomedical practitioners as a
pathology, so it became an object of governmental action as a social
pathology, and this would not change much in the United States until
oneortwodecadesago.
In part because of this genealogy, the public identity of elderly
people was one that resolutely made the private—the aging body—