Anti-Aging and Biomedicine: Critical Studies on the Pursuit of Maintaining, Revitalizing and Enhancing Aging Bodies

摘要

Anti-aging, the idea that medical or quasi-medical concepts can intervene in the aging process to slow, stop, or even reverse the process of growing old, has become a popular and scientific buzz-word throughout the Western world. This special issue focuses specifically on biomedicine and its relation to anti-aging cultures by contextual-ising this complex topic through an interdisciplinary approach that draws upon ethics, cultural anthropology, sociology, and history to offer a new understanding of biomedicine as a social and cultural practice as it engages with Western society's quest for longevity. Emphasising the historical and socio-cultural context of the way anti-aging movements have constructed aging bodies and the aging process, a number of key themes are identified: the competing definitions of old age within biomedicine, medicali-sation of old age, the ethics of the anti-aging market, and the contested nature of anti-aging as a legitimate field of gerontology. Suggestions for further research areas for the study of anti-aging medicine and its role in western society are developed, specifically: the need to contrast the science and biomedicine of antiaging with those who are experiencing this "targeted" age, paying closer attention to the different stages of old age and to the gender dynamic involved, considering the social and economic differences found amongst the elderly, and analysing the role of the media in forming and shaping anti-aging and biomedicine discourses. The papers in this special issue illustrate the multifaceted nature of anti-aging in the field of biomedicine and its related shifting of the meaning of old age.