“This a delightful kaleidoscope of countless aspects of growing old ... it is a unique book in the sense that it presents a rich collection of ‘vignettes’ of elderly people across Europe. It is something that I have not come across before in anthropology.” • Sjaak van der Geest, University of Amsterdam
Older adults want to exercise a sense of control over their relationships, structures and surroundings as they navigate the later life course. Through detailed ethnographic case studies, this book examines the dynamic lifeworlds of a hundred and seven community-dwelling older adults in Europe before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. It explores the importance of agency, the frictions between self-perceptions of age and outside impositions and the need to deconstruct old age as a homogenising category. These insights challenge simple narratives of older persons as social burdens by highlighting the complex roles they fill in family, neighbourhood and communities.
Katja Seidel is a Senior Lecturer at the Unit for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Innsbruck and co-Director of the ‘ethnocineca – International Documentary Film Festival’ in Vienna. She has conducted fieldwork in Argentina, Nicaragua, Ethiopia, Spain and Germany, and co-directed the Holocaust research project ‘A Letter to the Stars’ in Vienna.
David Prendergast is Head of the Department of Anthropology and Professor of Science, Technology and Society at Maynooth University in Ireland. Previously, David worked at Intel where he was a principal investigator at the ‘Technology Research for Independent Living Centre’ and co-founder of the ‘Intel Collaborative Research Institute for Sustainable Connected Cities’.
A. Jamie Saris is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology, Maynooth University. He has been working for more than twenty-five years in medical and psychological anthropology in field sites in Ireland, North America, Continental Europe and parts of Africa. He is a founding member and part of the Executive Committee of the Assisting Living and Learning (ALL) Institute at Maynooth University.
LC: HQ1064.E85 S45 2025
BISAC: SOC002010 SOCIAL SCIENCE/Anthropology/Cultural & Social; SOC013000 SOCIAL SCIENCE/Gerontology; SOC026040 SOCIAL SCIENCE/Sociology/Social Theory
