Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Ageing between Gerontology and Biomedicine.
AU - Moreira, Tiago
AU - Palladino, Paolo
N1 - http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=BIO The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, BioSocieties, 4 (3), pp 349-365 2009, © 2009 Cambridge University Press.
PY - 2009/12
Y1 - 2009/12
N2 - Over the past two decades, public interest in the basic biological processes underlying the phenomenon of ageing has grown considerably. New developments in biotechnology and health maintenance programmes appear to be forging new relationships between biology, medicine and the lives of older people. A number of social scientists describe the process as the ‘biomedicalization of aging’. In this article, we argue that contemporary biogerontology, an important sub-field of gerontology that could be construed as the primary actor in the process of ‘biomedicalization’, should be regarded instead as advancing a critique of biomedicine. We then provide a genealogy of the critique and close the argument by pointing to sources of uncertainty within biogerontology, which should be taken into account in any further studies of the relationship between biology, medicine and the lives of older people.
AB - Over the past two decades, public interest in the basic biological processes underlying the phenomenon of ageing has grown considerably. New developments in biotechnology and health maintenance programmes appear to be forging new relationships between biology, medicine and the lives of older people. A number of social scientists describe the process as the ‘biomedicalization of aging’. In this article, we argue that contemporary biogerontology, an important sub-field of gerontology that could be construed as the primary actor in the process of ‘biomedicalization’, should be regarded instead as advancing a critique of biomedicine. We then provide a genealogy of the critique and close the argument by pointing to sources of uncertainty within biogerontology, which should be taken into account in any further studies of the relationship between biology, medicine and the lives of older people.
KW - Ageing
KW - Biology
KW - Biomedicine
KW - Evolution
KW - Governance
KW - Medicine
KW - Public Health
U2 - 10.1017/S1745855209990305
DO - 10.1017/S1745855209990305
M3 - Journal article
VL - 4
SP - 349
EP - 365
JO - BioSocieties
JF - BioSocieties
SN - 1745-8560
IS - 3
ER -