Accepted Panels

While anthropologists have established that individual longevity is feature of human life across all societies, never before in human history have so many people around the world lived to old age as they are now. The future will see further increases in the proportion of older people not only across the welfare states of the global north, but across a diverse range of developing regions in the global south as well. In order to understand these changes, however, the anthropology of aging needs to reflect on the dominant representation of Euro-American-based scholarship and the relative lack of prominence given to work produced by and concerning the global south. This need for ethnographic scholarship on local cultural understandings and experiences of aging, particularly in the global south, has also become a critical concern for scholars and practicing professionals in the field of development and humanitarian work. This panel will reflect these shared concerns and look at ways to broaden the scope and inclusivity of age and life course anthropology including intersections of ageing with gender, class, ethnicity, disability and other diversities. We will look at ways to expand the range of voices and perspectives on topics that are arising from local concerns as well as global mobility and transnational relationships. As the effects of migration, conflict, epidemics , disasters and other upheavals have come to post an increasing risk for older people, anthropological methods and perspectives can be used to better inform and transform policy approaches and intervention strategies. This panel looks at the possibilities of developing world anthropologies of aging and the life course, both to offer constructive critiques of established paradigms and to offer future directions, challenges and opportunities.