Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-2lccl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T15:16:52.627Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘Death talk’, ‘loss talk’ and identification in the process of ageing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 October 2014

KAREN WEST  and
JASON GLYNOS
KAREN WEST*
Affiliation:
School of Languages and Social Sciences, Aston University, Birmingham, UK.
JASON GLYNOS
Affiliation:
Department of Government, University of Essex, Colchester, UK.
*
Address for correspondence: Karen West, School of Languages and Social Sciences, Aston University, Aston Triangle, Birmingham B4 7ET, UK. E-mail: k.west@aston.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this paper, we examine the injunction issued by the prominent politician, broadcaster and older people's advocate, Baroness Joan Bakewell, to engage in ‘death talk’. We see positive ethical potential in this injunction, insofar as it serves as a call to confront more directly the prospects of death and dying, thereby releasing creative energies with which to change our outlook on life and ageing more generally. However, when set against a culture that valorises choice, independence and control, the positive ethical potential of such injunctions is invariably thwarted. We illustrate this with reference to one of Bakewell's interventions in a debate on scientific innovation and population ageing. In examining the context of her intervention, we affirm her intuition about its positive ethical potential, but we also point to an ambivalence that accompanies the formulation of the injunction – one that ultimately blunts the force and significance of her intuition. We suggest that Gilleard and Higgs' idea of the third age/fourth age dialectic, combined with the psycho-analytic concepts of fantasy and mourning, allow us to express this intuition better. In particular, we argue that the expression ‘loss talk’ (rather than ‘death talk’) better captures the ethical negotiations that should ultimately underpin the transformation processes associated with ageing, and that our theoretical contextualisation of her remarks can help us see this more clearly. In this view, deteriorations in our physical and mental capacities are best understood as involving changes in how we see ourselves, i.e. in our identifications, and so what is at stake are losses of identity and the conditions under which we can engage in new processes of identification.

Keywords

third age/fourth age dialecticfantasythe RealmourningFreudLacan
Type
Forum Article
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 36 , Issue 2 , February 2016 , pp. 225 - 239
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baars, J. 2012. Ageing and the Art of Living. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Maryland.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barnes, M., Taylor, D. and Ward, L. 2013. Being well enough in old age. Critical Social Policy, 33 3, 473–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Butler, J. 2004. Violence, mourning, politics. In Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. Verso, London, 19–49.Google Scholar
Estes, C., Biggs, S. and Phillipson, C. 2003. Social Theory, Social Policy and Ageing. A Critical Introduction. Open University Press, Maidenhead.Google Scholar
Featherstone, M. and Wernick, A. 1995. Introduction. In Featherstone, M. and Wernick, A. (eds), Images of Aging. Cultural Representations of Later Life. Routledge, London, 1–18.Google Scholar
Freud, S. 1915. Thoughts for the times on war and death. In The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Volume XIV (1914–1916), Hogarth Press, London, 275–302.Google Scholar
Freud, S. [1915] 1917. Mourning and melancholia. In The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Volume XIV (1914–1916), Hogarth Press, London, 225–35.Google Scholar
Gilleard, C. and Higgs, P. 2000. Cultures of Ageing. Self, Citizen and the Body. Prentice-Hall, London.Google Scholar
Gilleard, C. and Higgs, P. 2010. Ageing without agency: theorizing the Fourth Age. Aging and Mental Health, 14, 2, 121–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gilleard, C. and Higgs, P. 2011. Frailty, disability and old age: a re-appraisal. Health, 15, 5, 475–90.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gilleard, C. and Higgs, P. 2013. Ageing, Corporeality and Embodiment. Anthem Press, London.Google Scholar
Glynos, J. 2014 a. Neoliberalism, markets, fantasy: the case of health and social care. Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society, 19, 1, 5–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glynos, J. 2014 b. Death, fantasy, and the ethics of mourning. In Carpentier, N. and Van Brussel, L. (eds), Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Social Construction of Death. Palgrave, London, 137–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glynos, J., West, K., Hagger, B. and Shaw, R. 2014. Narrative, fantasy, and mourning: a critical exploration of life & loss in assisted living environments. In Fotaki, M. and Kenny, K. (eds), The Psycho-social and Organization Studies: Affect at Work. Palgrave, London, 212–43.Google Scholar
Katz, S. 2010. Sociocultural perspectives on ageing bodies. In Dannefer, D. and Phillipson, C. (eds), The Sage Handbook of Social Gerontology. Sage, Los Angeles, 357–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Layton, L. 2009. Who's responsible? Our mutual implication in each other's suffering. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 19, 2, 105–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Price, D., Bisdee, D., Daly, T., Livsey, L. and Higgs, P. 2014. Financial planning for social care in later life: the ‘shadow’ of fourth age dependency. Ageing & Society, 34, 3, 388–410.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wernick, A. 1995. Selling funerals, imaging death. In Featherstone, M. and Wernick, A. (eds), Images of Aging. Cultural Representations of Later Life. Routledge, London, 280–93.Google Scholar
Wetherell, M. 2012. Affect and Emotion. A New Social Science Understanding. Sage, London.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Žižek, S. 2008 a. The Plague of Fantasies. Verso, London.Google Scholar
Žižek, S. 2008 b. The Sublime Object of Ideology. Verso, London.Google Scholar
Žižek, S. 2008 c. The Ticklish Subject. Verso, London.Google Scholar