Beyond Human-Centred Aging: Relational Sociology, Sustainability and Interconnected Aging

We are living in turbulent times marked by climate crisis, growing inequalities, and profound social transformations. This session responds to the theme Global Sociology in Turbulent Times by positioning aging and climate change as a key lens for understanding these shifts. Climate change is not a singular event but an unfolding process that stretches across time, space, and generations. Its effects are unevenly distributed yet deeply interconnected, linking ecosystems, societies, and human lives in complex and often unpredictable ways. As environmental transformations intensify, they reshape not only landscapes and livelihoods but also the experience of aging itself. In this session we focus on contributions that explore aging as a relational and temporal phenomenon that is entangled with ecological change, intergenerational responsibility, and questions of sustainability.

We invite contributions that explore aging in relation to sustainability transitions, social inequalities, climate justice, migration, care, and changing material conditions. A central focus is how societal transformations influence experiences of aging, and how aging itself plays a role in maintaining or transforming social and ecological relations.

By bringing together interdisciplinary perspectives, this session aims to advance sociological debates on aging in an era of planetary change. It highlights the importance of Interconnected Aging for rethinking core sociological concerns such as inequality, social change, and the future of sustainable societies.

Possible topics include: relational and environmental sociology of aging; aging in the Anthropocene; climate change and vulnerability; migration and aging; care systems; intergenerational relations and justice; and more-than-human or decolonial perspectives on aging.