A New Ethic of 'Older'

Through its themes of subjectivity, surgery, and self-stylization this book critically examines the cultural constraints and incitements that shape the practice of cosmetic surgery by older people. The book problematizes anti-ageing discourses to provide a nuanced descriptive, ethical, and political reading of older identity politics nested within the contemporary ethico-political terrain of self-care. A New Ethic of Older aims to de-territorialize the older subject from normative discourses of ageing and theorize becoming older. Evidence of an active cultural politics of older emerges from the critically reflexive engagement of older people with cosmetic surgery. This engagement constitutes a cutting critique of ageing discourses enmeshed in an aesthetic mode of subjectivation that underpins a new ethics of old age. The book will appeal to those in the fields of Cultural Gerontology, Ageing Studies, Critical Psychology, Sociology, and Cultural Geography. The methodological approach will be of interest to academics and students exploring the application of Foucaults work on care of the self to contemporary contexts and practices.