Caitrin Lynch and Jason Danely (ed.) Transitions and transformations: cultural perspectives on aging and the life course. New York, Oxford, Berghan Books, AAGE, 2015

Abstract

Caitrin Lynch and Jason Danely’s compilation is a remarkable work to appraise the contributions of Ethnography and Anthropology to aging and the life course. They succeed on communicating cultural dynamism and complexity of how humans grow older. The book is organized in five sections: frameworks, bodies, spatiality and temporality, families, and economies. The reader feels like travelling around the world, entering into personal matters and, at the same time, understanding the complexity of familiar arrangements, as well as local and global processes. It takes us closer to feelings, experiences, values, relationships and practices of people, families and institutions, all of them challenged by cultural, biological and political issues. The compilation shows many ways of dealing with longevity, the global work market, migrations, intergenerational tensions and globalization