Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Aging and Subjectivity: Ethnography, Experience and Cultural Context

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Cross-Cultural and Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives in Social Gerontology

Abstract

Anthropologists use the concept of subjectivity to describe the interplay between feeling, experience and social context. How can ethnography help researchers link theories of subjectivity to practices of working with older adults? This chapter brings together critical gerontology of global aging, narrative gerontology and anthropological theories of subjectivity to examine the experience of aging in contemporary Japan. In 2015, over one in four Japanese people were over the age of 65, and as pensioners enrolled in the national mandatory long-term care insurance programme, older Japanese adults, like those elsewhere in the world, feel pushed and pulled by a variety of interests as they attempt to manage interpersonal relationships, health and hopes. One narrative that has emerged from this context of longevity and care was a narrative of old age as being “burdensome”. Using examples of this narrative from fieldwork with older adults between 2005 and 2014, I argue that these concerns reveal tensions between competing subjectivities. While many older people still aspire to maintain selves embedded in interdependent and reciprocal relationships, care services address them as if they were autonomous individuals. This chapter describes the frustration this brings for thinking about future possible selves in old age, and considers alternative cultural models of subjectivity.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 99.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 129.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 129.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Baars, J. (2012). Aging and the art of living. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baars, J., Dannefer, D., Phillipson, C., & Walker, A. (2006). Aging, globalization and inequality: The new critical gerontology. Amityville, NY: Baywood Publishing Co., Inc.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bachnik, J. M., & Quinn, C. J. (1994). Situated meaning: Inside and outside in Japanese self, society, and language. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Benedict, R. (1946/1974). The chrysanthemum and the sword: Patterns of Japanese culture. New York: New American Library.

    Google Scholar 

  • Biehl, J. G., Good, B., & Kleinman, A. (2007). Subjectivity: Ethnographic investigations. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Bruner, J. (1991). The narrative construction of reality. Critical Inquiry, 18(1), 1–21 (1991). doi:10.1086/448619

  • Campbell, J. C., Ikegami, N., & Gibson, M. J. (2010). Lessons from public long-term care insurance in Germany and Japan. Health Affairs, 29(1), 87–95 (2010). doi:10.1377/hlthaff.2009.0548

  • Cole, J., & Durham, D. L. (2007). Generations and globalization: Youth, age, and family in the new world economy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Corsin-Jiménez, A. (Ed.). (2008). Culture and well-being: Anthropological approaches to freedom and political ethics. Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cosco, T. D., Prina, A. M., Perales, J., Stephan, B., & Brayne, C. (2014). Whose ‘successful ageing’?: Lay-and researcher-driven conceptualisations of ageing well”. The European Journal of Psychiatry, 28(2), 124–130.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • D’Andrade, R. G. (1994). The development of cognitive anthropology. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Danely, J. (2014). Aging and loss: Mourning and maturity in contemporary Japan. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Danely, J. (2016). Hope in an ageing Japan: Transience and transcendence. Contemporary Japan, 28(1), 13–31. doi:10.1515/cj-2016-0002

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Doi, T. (1985). The anatomy of self: The individual versus society. Tokyo: Kodansha USA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Good, B. J. (2012). Theorizing the “subject” of medical and psychiatric anthropology. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 18(3), 515–535.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Graham, J., & Stephenson, P. (2010). Aging and Loss. Contesting the Dominant Paradigm. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grossmann, I., Huynh, A. C. & Ellsworth, P. C. (2015). Emotional complexity: Clarifying definitions and cultural correlates. http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2015-57060-001/

  • Gullette, M. M. (2004). Aged by culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hashimoto, A. (1996). The gift of generations: Japanese and American perspectives on aging and the social contract. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Hendry, J. (1993). Wrapping culture: Politeness, presentation, and power in Japan and other societies. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jackson, M. (2002). The politics of storytelling: Violence, transgression, and intersubjectivity. Portland, OR: Museum Tusculanum Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kenyon, G. M., & Clark, P. G. (2001). Narrative gerontology: Theory, research, and practice. New York: Springer Publishing Company.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kondo, D. K. (1990). Crafting selves: Power, gender, and discourses of identity in a Japanese workplace. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lamb, S. (2014). Permanent personhood or meaningful decline? Toward a critical anthropology of successful aging. Journal of Aging Studies, 29, 41–52. doi:10.1016/j.jaging.2013.12.006

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Latour, B. (1987). Science in action: How to follow scientists and engineers through society. Milton Keynes, England: Open University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leibing, A. (2014). Heterotopia and illness: Older women and hypertension in a Brazilian favela. Anthropology & Aging Quarterly, 34(4), 225–237 (2014). doi:10.5195/aa.2014.2

  • Lester, R. (2005). Jesus in our wombs: Embodying modernity in a Mexican convent. Berkeley: Univeristy of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levy, B. R. (1999). The inner self of the Japanese elderly: A defense against negative stereotypes of aging. International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 48(2), 131–144.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lock, M. M. (1993). Encounters with aging mythologies of menopause in Japan and North America. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Long, S. O. (2012). Bodies, technologies, and aging in Japan: Thinking about old people and their silver products. Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology, 27(2), 119–137.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Luhrmann, T. R. (2006). Subjectivity. Anthropology Theory, 6(3), 345–361.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lynch, C., & Danely, J. (Eds.). (2013). Transitions and transformations: Cultural perspectives on aging and the life course. Oxford: Berghahn Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Markus, H. R., & Herzog, A. R. (1991). The role of the self concept in aging. In Annual review of gerontology and geriatrics, 11, 110–143.

    Google Scholar 

  • Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the Self: Implications for Cognition, Emotion, and Motivation. Psychological Review, 98(2), 224–253. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.98.2.224

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Martin, P., Kelly, N., Kahana, B., Kahana, E., Willcox, B. J., Willcox, D. C., et al. (2015). Defining successful aging: A tangible or elusive concept? The Gerontologist, 55(1), 14–25. doi:10.1093/geront/gnu044

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Matsumoto, Y. (2011). Faces of aging: The lived experiences of the elderly in Japan. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McAdams, D. P. (2005). Studying lives in time: A narrative approach. In Towards an interdisciplinary perspective on the life course: Advances in life course research, 10, 237–258.

    Google Scholar 

  • Meiu, G. P. (2014). “Beach-boy elders” and “young big-men”: Subverting the temporalities of ageing in Kenya’s ethno-erotic economies. Ethnos, 1–25. doi:10.1080/00141844.2014.938674

  • Neilson, B. (2012). Ageing, experience, biopolitics: Life’s unfolding. Body & Society, 18(3–4), 44–71.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nortvedt, P. (2003). Subjectivity and vulnerability: Reflections on the foundation of ethical sensibility. Nursing Philosophy, 4(3), 222–230. doi:10.1046/j.1466-769X.2003.00120.x

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ortner, S. B. (2005). Subjectivity and cultural critique. Anthropological Theory, 5(1), 31–52.

    Google Scholar 

  • Otto, L. (2013). Negotiating a healthy body in old age: Preventative home visits and biopolitics. International Journal of Ageing and Later Life (advance access) http://www.ep.liu.se/ej/ijal/2013/v8/i1/13-111/ijal13-111.pdf

  • Parish, S. M. (2008). Subjectivity and suffering in American culture: Possible selves. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Phoenix, C., Smith, B., & Sparkes, A. C. (2010). Narrative analysis in aging studies: A typology for consideration. Journal of Aging Studies, 24(1), 1–11.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pols, J. (2012). Care at a distance on the closeness of technology. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Popp, J., & Wilhelm, J. H. (2009). Altern und suizidalität im heutigen Japan. Godzik, 7, t3–t93.

    Google Scholar 

  • Robbins, J. (2013). Beyond the suffering subject: Toward an anthropology of the good. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 19(3), 447–462. doi:10.1111/1467-9655.12044

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Robbins-Ruszkowski, J. C. (2013a). Shifting moral ideals of aging in Poland: Suffering, self-actualization, and the nation. In C. Lynch & J. Danely (Eds.), Transitions and transformations: Cultural perspectives on aging and the life course. Oxford: Berghahn Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Robbins-Ruszkowski, J. C. (2013b). Challenging marginalization at the universities of the third age in Poland. Anthropology & Aging Quarterly, 34(2), 157–169. doi:10.5195/aa.2013.18

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rosenberger, N. R. (1994). Japanese sense of self. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosenberger, H. (2009). Complaint discourse, aging and caregiving among the Ju/’hoansi of Botswana. In J. Sololovsky (Ed.), The cultural context of aging: Worldwide perspectives (3rd ed., pp. 30–52). London: Bergin&Garvey.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rubinstein, R. L., & de Medeiros, K. (2014). Successful aging’, gerontological theory and neoliberalism: A qualitative critique. The Gerontologist, August,. doi:10.1093/geront/gnu080.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schattschneider, E. (2003). Immortal wishes: Labor and transcendence on a Japanese sacred mountain. Durham, N.C: Duke University Press Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shimizu, H. (2001). Japanese adolescent boys’ senses of empathy (omoiyari) and Carol Gilligan’s perspectives on the morality of care: A phenomenological approach. Culture & Psychology, 7(4), 453–475. doi:10.1177/1354067X0174003

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Suzuki, N. (2013). Preface. In N. Suzuki (Ed.), The anthropology of aging and well-being: Searching for the space and time to cultivate life together, Senri Ethnological Studies (Vol. 80, pp. i–ix). Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology.

    Google Scholar 

  • Takagi, E., & Silverstein, M. (2006). Intergenerational coresidence of the Japanese elderly are cultural norms proactive or reactive? Research on Aging, 28(4), 473–492.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tamiya, N., Noguchi, H., Nishi, A., Reich, M. R., Ikegami, N., Hashimoto, H., et al. (2011). Population ageing and wellbeing: Lessons from Japan’s long-term care insurance policy. The Lancet, 378(9797), 1183–1192.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tomita, S. K. (1994). The consideration of cultural factors in the research of elder mistreatment with an in-depth look at the Japanese. Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology, 9(1), 39–52.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Traphagan, J. W. (2000). Taming oblivion: Aging bodies and the fear of senility in Japan. Albany: State University of New York Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Traphagan, J. W. (2006). Intergenerational ambivalence and suicide in rural Japan. Journal of Intergenerational Relationships, 8(1), 21–37.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Twigg, J. (2013). Fashion and age: Dress, the body and later life. London: A&C Black.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Twigg, J., & Martin, W. (2014). The Challenge of Cultural Gerontology. The Gerontologist,. doi:10.1093/geront/gnu061

    Google Scholar 

  • Vincent, J. A., Phillipson, C., & Downs, M. (2006). The futures of old age. Thousand Oaks, Calif: SAGE Publications Ltd.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilińska, M., & Anbäcken, E.-M. (2013). In search of the everyday life of older people in Japan: Reflections based on scholarly literature. Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology, 28(4), 435–451. doi:10.1007/s10823-013-9204-7

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK

    Jason Danely

Authors
  1. Jason Danely
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jason Danely .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Humanities & Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Humanities & Social Sciences, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India

    Tannistha Samanta

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 Springer Science+Business Media Singapore

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Danely, J. (2017). Aging and Subjectivity: Ethnography, Experience and Cultural Context. In: Samanta, T. (eds) Cross-Cultural and Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives in Social Gerontology . Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-1654-7_4

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-1654-7_4

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-10-1653-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-10-1654-7

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation