Ageing Futures: New Departures for the Sociology of Ageing In Turbulent Times

There is increasing interest in futures within a diverse array of humanities and social sciences. However, ‘ageing’ has tended not to be considered as a focus for such inquiry. Exploration of ageing futures have largely been limited to people’s preparation for their end-of-life, possible care needs, or the imagined societal transformation created through changing demographics.

This session invites scholars from sociology and related disciplines to engage critically with these constructions of potential trajectories for human longevity, or the consideration of alternative futures. The session is open to research from any geographical region, theoretical orientation, and methodological approach. Papers may engage with – but are not limited to - the following topics:

• Anticipating our ageing bodies – explorations of how people make sense of bodily changes across the life-course
• Digital ageing futures – acquiescence and resistance to datafied futures
• More-than-human ageing – explorations of ageing alongside other-than-human species and living ecosystems
• Prophecies, prediction and forecasting – opportunities and limitations of futuring with/through demography
• Ageing turbulently – explorations of how conflicts, extreme weather, and environmental collapse shape fragile, ageing trajectories
• Preferred ageing futures – creative and speculative research approaches to explore how people would like to grow old in near or distant futures
• Death and the ageing terminus – exploring how people make sense of and prepare for their own end of life
• Telos, legacy and mythologising life – Contemplation and searches for life purpose and meaning; legacy as death futures