Aging in an Aging Society; Critical Reflections; Monique Lanoix; Iva Apostolova

Edited by

Iva Apostolova [+–]

Dominican University College

Iva Apostolova is Associate Professor at Dominican University College. Her main areas of research interest are analytic philosophy, epistemology, philosophy of mind with emphasis on memory, feminist thought, and ethics of care. She has published in Russell: The Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies, Feminist Philosophy Quarterly, and has authored with Donal O’Reardon Essentials of Critical Thinking: An Introduction to Critical Thinking

Monique Lanoix [+–]

Saint-Paul University

Monique Lanoix is associate professor in the faculty of Philosophy and the School of Ethics, Social Justice and Public Service at Saint-Paul University. Her research focuses on ancillary care as a right of social citizenship. She has published in Hypatia, Brain Injury, IJFAB, Chronic Illness and the Journal of Medical Ethics.

The perspectives the papers engage with range from theoretical to applied. This demonstrates how those perspectives can and must engage with each other. From the invisibility of aging persons, to the manner in which discourses of aging-well rely on normative assumptions, to the ways in which we engage with persons with dementia, to the responsibility of providing care locally and across borders, this collection endeavours to advance aging as a positive challenge that can enrich us all.

Preliminaries

Acknowledgements [+–] vii

Iva Apostolova,Monique Lanoix FREE

Dominican University College

Saint-Paul University

This volume presents contributions from academics, practitioners and researchers who reflect on aging and argue that while the financial impact of aging appears to be receiving increased attention, the more personal, familial and communal consequences of aging must also be examined. This collection delves further into the topic of aging as both personal and social phenomenon. The perspectives the papers engage with range from theoretical to applied. This demonstrates how those perspectives can and must engage with each other. From the invisibility of aging persons, to the manner in which discourses of aging-well rely on normative assumptions, to the ways in which we engage with persons with dementia, to the responsibility of providing care locally and across borders, this collection endeavours to advance aging as a positive challenge that can enrich us all.

A Note of Acknowledgment to Monique [+–] viii

Iva Apostolova FREE

Dominican University College

Introduction

Introduction [+–] 1-12

Iva Apostolova,Monique Lanoix FREE

Dominican University College

Saint-Paul University

Part One: Hospitality and the Embodied Self

1. The Ethics of Hospitality: Reflections on Aging [+–] 15-40

Sophie Cloutier £17.50

Saint-Paul University

Sophie Cloutier is associate professor in the faculty of Philosophy and the School of Public Ethics and Governance at Saint-Paul University. Her main area of research is political philosophy and public ethics. She has published several articles on Hannah Arendt’s thought, multiculturalism, hospitality and ethics of care. She has also edited and contributed to the book Le temps de l’hospitalité. Réception de l’oeuvre de Daniel Innerarity (PUL 2015).

“The Ethics of Hospitality: Reflections on Aging” by Sophie Cloutier proposes an exploration of the ethics of our relationship with other aging individuals. Hospitality is universal: it is present in every culture and religion, and it is the guide to welcoming the stranger at the door. Cloutier proposes that we, humans, are relational beings who are receptive to learning how to welcome the unforeseen.

2. The Other within Us: Reframing, with Spinoza, the Self’s Relationship to Disability and Aging [+–] 41-61

Iva Apostolova,Elaina Gauthier-Mamaril £17.50

Dominican University College

University of Aberdeen (PhD candidate)

Elaina Gauthier-Mamaril is a PhD candidate at the School of Divinity, History, and Philosophy at University of Aberdeen. Her main research focus is on Baruch Spinoza’s philosophy with emphasis on his political thought.

“The Other within Us: Reframing, with Spinoza, the Self’s Relationship to Disability and Aging” by Iva Apostolova and Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril adapts the philosopher Baruch Spinoza’s anti-dualist theory of the conatus to the question of aging. The authors argue that since we always conceptualise ourselves in relation with others, the cultivation of compassion is a moral attitude that asks from each of us an effort to negotiate between our own interests and those of others.

Part Two: Aging and the Loss of Presence

3. Aging and the Loss of Social Presence [+–] 65-81

Christine Overall £17.50

Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario

Christine Overall is a Professor Emerita of Philosophy at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, where she holds a University Research Chair. Her main areas of research and publication are feminist philosophy and applied ethics. Her book, Aging, Death, and Human Longevity: A Philosophical Inquiry (University of California Press, 2003) won the Canadian Philosophical Association’s 2005 book prize and the Royal Society of Canada’s Abbyann D. Lynch Medal in Bioethics in 2006. Her most recent books are Why Have Children? The Ethical Debate (MIT Press, 2012), and the edited volume, Pets and People: The Ethics of Our Relationships with Companion Animals (Oxford, 2017).

“Aging and the Loss of Social Presence” by Christine Overall aims at exposing the worrying tendency of enforced loss of social presence of old(er) persons. To the suggestion touted by some philosophers that there are benefits for the individual from withdrawing from professional and social life in old age, Overall counter-proposes a re-examination of the way the individual herself values her own aging and dying process.

4. LGBT Elders, Isolation, and Loneliness: An Existential Analysis [+–] 82-98

Tim Johnston £17.50

Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders

Tim Johnston holds a Ph.D. form SUNY Stony Brook and is the Director of National Projects at Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders (SAGE). He is responsible for directing SAGE’s national training initiatives, developing training curricula and providing consulting services to both aging and LGBT service providers. He has written scholarly and popular articles on gender and LGBT identity, and his first book, Affirmation, Care Ethics and LGBT Identity was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2016.

“LGBT Elders, Isolation, and Loneliness: An Existential Analysis” by Tim Johnston examines evidence showing that isolation and loneliness have a profoundly negative impact on the individual’s wellbeing because they remove, especially older LGBT adults, from temporal rhythms, thus making it difficult for them to maintain a sense of self and precariously plunging them in the past, as opposed to allowing them to be involved in future-oriented projects.

5. Aging and Aesthetic Responsibility [+–] 99-124

Elizabeth Lanphier £17.50

Vanderbilt University (PhD candidate)

Elizabeth Lanphier is a PhD candidate in the philosophy department at Vanderbilt University, where she is also training with the Center for Biomedical Ethics in Clinical Ethics. She previously worked in international health and humanitarian aid, and she holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Literature and History from New York University and a Master’s Degree in Narrative Medicine from Columbia University.

“Aging and Aesthetic Responsibility” by Elizabeth Lanphier looks at the process of aging from the point of view of the representation of the aging body, especially the ageing female body, in mainstream visual arts. Lanphier seeks to establish that there is, in fact, an ethical responsibility to visually represent aged bodies, in particular, and scenes of aging, in general.

Part Three: Dependence and Independence in the Context of Care and Aging

6. Fostering a ‘Community of Care’: Supporting a Shared Experience of Aging in Co-housing [+–] 127-147

Magdalena Goemans £17.50

Carleton University (PhD candidate)

Magda Goemans is a PhD candidate in the department of Geography & Environmental Studies at Carleton University. While her doctoral thesis research focuses on household climate change adaptation in Canadian cities, she has gained considerable knowledge of seniors cohousing issues through her involvement in a community-campus partnership at Carleton. As a research assistant with a SSHRC-funded project titled Community First: Impacts of Community Engagement, she provided research support to a neighbourhood initiative that aims to establish a seniors cohousing community in the Ottawa area.

“Fostering a ‘Community of Care’: Supporting a Shared Experience of Aging in Co-housing” by Magda Goemans explains the history and hopes of a housing project for older adults in Ottawa. As an alternative to more traditional living arrangements, the model adopted by this group is self-organisation and it intends to support the goal of sharing services, as well as to act as a safeguard against social isolation.

7. Dependency and Vulnerability in the Twenty-First Century: The Swedish Case [+–] 148-167

Hildur Kalman £17.50

Umeå University, Sweden

Hildur Kalman is a professor of Social Work and Reader in Philosophy of Science, at Umeå University, Sweden. She has earlier served as Director of the National Research School in Social Work, Sweden, and as Coordinator of the Graduate School of Gender Studies at Umeå Centre for Gender Studies, Umeå University. Her work critically evaluates the outcomes of changes in the Swedish Welfare system for home care services in Sweden with a focus on how users’ power may be neutralized when dependency on care is clothed in terms of clients and customers.

“Dependency and Vulnerability in the Twenty-First Century: The Swedish Case” by Hildur Kalman illustrates the impact of regulations on the provision of care for older adults. Even if Sweden is perceived as having generous welfare policies, Kalman’s paper is concerned with the noticeable move toward the marketisation of care and its impact on the care recipients, more specifically, older adults who require intimate care.

8. Caring Across Borders: Lessons from Transnational Families [+–] 168-181

Marta Rodríguez-Galán £17.50

St. John Fisher College

Marta Rodríguez-Galán is associate professor of Sociology at St. John Fisher College, where she also directs the Gerontology program. For over a decade now, she has been conducting research on aging and health with a particular focus on Hispanic/Latino communities in the U.S. She is currently researching civic engagement among low-income older Latinos and the experiences of Latina grandmothers and great-grandmothers raising grandchildren.

“Caring across Borders: Lessons from Transnational Families” by Marta Rodriguez-Galán shares the story of the author’s mother’s rapid decline due to an early onset of Alzheimer’s. Moving from her personal story of caring for her mother from a distance, Rodriguez-Galán casts a wider net and reviews the policies, among which immigration policies, that affect transnational families when it comes to caring for aging family members.

Part Four: Critical Perspectives on Aging

9. The Missing Voices in Aging-Well Frameworks: A Postcolonial Critique [+–] 185-202

Lauren Brooks-Cleator,Audrey Giles £17.50

University of Ottawa (PhD candidate)

Lauren Brooks-Cleator is a Ph.D. candidate in Human Kinetics at the University of Ottawa. She holds an MA in Human Kinetics. Her current Ph.D. research focuses on creating a culturally safe age-friendly and ageing well framework with Indigenous seniors in Ottawa, Canada.

University of Ottawa

Audrey R. Giles is a Full Professor in the School of Human Kinetics at the University of Ottawa. She works with Indigenous communities to examine the nexus between culture/gender/place as they relate to health promotion and injury prevention.

“The Missing Voices in Aging-Well Frameworks: A Postcolonial Critique” by Lauren Brooks-Cleator and Audrey Giles proposes a post-colonial critique of the neoliberal take on aging-well. The paper has a twofold focus: a critical discussion of dominant aging-well frameworks combined with policies from the point of view of both postcolonial theory and Indigenous perspective. The authors call for the construction of new, inclusive, and culturally safe aging-well frameworks and policies.

End Matter

Index [+–] 203-213

Iva Apostolova FREE

Dominican University College

Reviews

In Aging in an Aging Society Apostolova and Lanoix present a series of papers that explore our understanding of our individual perception of aging, our societal perception and the implications this has on how care is delivered to the aged. In doing so, by revealing the foundations of the issue, they add not only clarity to an issue that we cannot afford to ignore, they reinforce the relevance of philosophy in public discourse. The authors demonstrate that philosophy is more than simply an academic pursuit; on the contrary, it repositions itself in the centre of a debate on aging where it can resume its role in advancing understanding of the world and our place in it. As we continue to navigate the implications of COVID-19, we overlook expertise at our own peril. Aging in an Aging Society offers more than just insight, it affirms that the reach of philosophy extends beyond the ivory tower. It confirms that the medium is the message.
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Aging in an Aging Society

Critical Reflections

Iva Apostolova [+–]

Dominican University College

Monique Lanoix [+–]

Saint-Paul University

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