This paper outlines a critique of the use of post-humanist epistemologies in the study of age and ageing which we argue makes age more a matter of human imagination than of human mattering. The 'decentring' of what is human that is associated with post-humanism creates a set of phenomena that we feel obfuscates rather than illuminates the place of age and ageing in human life, human relations and human society. Applied to the study of ageing, post-humanism claims to establish a new materialist gerontology that challenges the ontological basis applied in most ageing studies. Both the species-being of humanity, the individual experience of age and ageing and the social relations in which the processes of ageing are embedded, are sidelined in favour of a view of ageing conceived as an entanglement of objects, organs and organisations. Rather than a human or social reality, age appears to dissolve into a complex, contingent set of networks and processes extending beyond the merely human. These post-humanist developments are seen as offering new and alternative perspectives to those associated with more conventional ageing studies, which have focused on change in the individual experience, cultural representations and social relations of ageing. Such post-humanist epistemological frameworks, we suggest, risk acting as a set of mirrors through which age is endlessly refracted. In the process, age and ageing lose much of their human understandability to become a seemingly infinite flux of diffusely distributed, and ultimately directionless quasi-vitalities.

This article examines how older adults in Italy and Sweden make sense of environmental actions across the life course through temporal lenses. Older adults occupy a distinctive position from which to reflect on past social and environmental transformations, interpret present practices, and consider individual and collective futures. Drawing on 31 semi-structured interviews conducted in Turin and Gothenburg, we use a constructivist grounded theory approach to examine how past experiences, present positions, and future orientations shape environmental (in)action in later life. We discuss these actions and temporal framings in relation to the novel concept of environmental legacies. The findings show that participants engaged in diverse private and public environmental actions whose meanings were negotiated through temporal orientations and changing social norms. National and local contexts, including histories of environmental policymaking and civic engagement, shaped practices and perceptions. Frugal practices rooted in economic necessity and family life were reinterpreted as environmentally beneficial in the present. Future orientations were ambivalent: some participants framed environmental action in terms of responsibility for collective futures, whereas others discounted longer-term perspectives. Family relationships, local communities, and attachment to place fostered legacy-oriented thinking and intergenerational solidarity. These findings demonstrate that environmental actions and legacies are negotiated within temporal, social, familial, and political contexts. By situating environmental action within life-course temporalities, the study highlights the importance of incorporating older adults' situated knowledge, experience, and agency into environmental and climate policymaking.

Jenna Butler's Wells (2012) is a collection of poetry in which the poet mourns the loss of her grandmother, a life-long birdwatcher who can still recognize the familiar calls of birds that she is no longer able to name due to cognitive issues associated with dementia. Treating this scenario as one that invites interpretation from a posthuman perspective, this paper conducts a close analysis that is situated at the intersection of age studies and animal studies and highlights the possibilities and the perils of linking these two fields of inquiry. Balanced on the divide between animalizing people with dementia and subordinating non-human animals to the role of backdrop to expressions of human grief, Butler's poems navigate these twinned risks through a poetry that is ornithologically alert to bird vocalizations, behaviours, and habitats. The poet's attentiveness to birds as birds resists the transcendent, anthropocentric consolations that elegy traditionally affords; at the same time, it also enables the poet to locate the persistence of her grandmother's subjectivity in her aural recognition of bird sounds, to affirm a continuing selfhood that is maintained through interaction with the more-than-human world. Butler's poems imagine dementia through a multi-species lens that frames it, not as a catastrophic loss of humanity, but as an example of the embodied vulnerability that defines human and non-human animals alike.

Globally, one in two people discriminates against older adults. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated this issue, as evidenced by the increase in ageist hate speech in social media, highlighting the urgent need to combat ageism also in digital spaces. To identify effective online interventions against ageism and hate speech, this study compares three intervention methods: 1) exposure to counter-stereotypical traits, 2) perspective taking, and 3) implementation intention, focusing on their differences in targeting explicit or implicit ageist biases. In an online experiment with a one factor between-subjects design, participants (N = 184) performed one of the three intervention tasks or a control task, followed by assessments of implicit and explicit ageism. Implicit ageism was measured using an Implicit Association Test (IAT; N = 174), which tested the association of old and young faces with age-related hate speech and friendly comments. The study also examined how aging anxiety as a moderator and other potential influencing factors, such as contact with older adults, affected the effectiveness of these interventions. The results show that perspective taking was the only intervention that significantly reduced explicit stereotypes, whereas none of the brief interventions shifted implicit ageism. Aging anxiety did not moderate the effectiveness of the interventions, but it did predict explicit ageism. In summary, this study delineates the conditions under which scalable, brief interventions prove effective within gerontological contexts, while indicating that implicit bias may require more sustained or repeated efforts.

Even critical approaches in ageing and technology that aim at better inclusion of older people and their perspectives have shortcomings. In socio-gerontechnology research this can be seen as a reliance on the third age paradigm. Although concepts stemming from this paradigm, such as early adoption and innosumerism, have been useful in untangling ageism that is central to gerontechnology, they have simultaneously enforced the ideal of active ageing. This conceptual article incorporates the concept of ailment into socio-gerontechnology literature for a deeper understanding of gerontechnology. The article suggests that this integration can help in gaining a better understanding of agency, the market and needs in gerontechnology practices. Through this discussion, the paper paves the way for more inclusive research in the nexus of ageing, care and technology studies.

Population aging and digital transformation have brought increasing attention to the digital divide among older adults, i.e., the gray digital divide. However, existing research has rarely examined this issue from the perspective of elders' roles within the family. Grounded in role theory, this study explores whether grandchild care facilitates or hinders digital inclusion among older adults, considering both access and usage gaps. Furthermore, it investigates the mediating role of intergenerational support in this relationship. Using panel data from the 2018 and 2020 waves of the China Longitudinal Aging Social Survey (CLASS) and employing longitudinal methods, the study found that grandchild care participation was related to higher Internet access, more frequent and instrumental Internet use among elders. However, intensive grandchild care was a negative predictor of Internet use. The mediation analysis revealed that older adults involved in grandchild care tended to receive greater emotional and financial support from their adult children, which in turn helped bridge both the gaps in Internet access and usage. The heterogeneity analysis showed that among grandmothers, urban residents, and less-educated seniors, participation in grandchild care-regardless of caregiving intensity-did not help bridge the usage divide; instead, it was associated with significantly lower levels of Internet use. These findings highlight the dual effects of grandchild care on the gray digital divide and the need for tailored policy interventions.

This article reads Syrian poet Mamdouh Adwan's 2000 poem Alayka Tataki' al-Hayah [On You Life Relies], first published in Damascus, Syria, as a cultural text about masculine aging, paternal authority, and embodied vulnerability. It argues that the poem's repeated figure of khiyanat al-jasad [the body's betrayals] does more than aestheticize bodily frailty. Through second-person address, negative anaphora, free-verse fragmentation, and the recurring imperative "die, my father," the poem theorizes old age as a crisis of recognition in which a father once imagined as a sovereign household body is remade through tremor, faltering speech, impaired vision, worn-out memory, dependence, and family laughter. Bringing cultural gerontology into dialogue with embodiment theory, aging masculinity studies, disability studies, modern Arabic poetry scholarship, and work on Arab kinship and intergenerational care, the article shows that the poem's crisis lies less in aging itself than in a model of paternal masculinity that cannot accommodate dependence without shame. The article contributes to aging studies by developing the concepts of humiliated embodiment and paternal unmaking, by challenging both decline and successful-aging narratives, and by arguing for modern Arabic poetry as a form of gerontological knowledge production.

Drawing on an ethnography with older adults in the northern Indian city of Patiala and its peripheral areas, this paper addresses three interconnected questions. How do older adults in Punjab experience ageing in the absence of kin members who migrate transnationally? How does migration reshape their perceptions of care, belonging, family reconfiguration, and other forms of social relatedness? How do these experiences reflect broader socio-political shifts in Punjab, both culturally and politically? First, the paper examines the paradox of transnational migration. Older adults actively facilitate the migration of younger family members by pooling resources and leveraging family networks. However, they are also the ones who live in the absence of their emigrated children occupying a liminal space. This paradox is explained through a temporality in which older adults situate themselves through their life course. Further, the paper highlights how ageing and migration unfold against a backdrop of growing disenchantment with the state among older adults. It also highlights their complex relationships with internal migrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar amongst others. Growing disenchantment with the state is largely shaped by unemployment, agrarian distress, and systemic neglect and corruption. The complex relationships with internal migrant labourers and care workers stem from anxieties of older adults, who perceive a demographic shift in Punjab because of the growing presence of these migrants. This study contributes to ethnographic and qualitative scholarship. It shows how migration produces layered affective, social, and political entanglements. These entanglements shape the very experience of growing old within a particular socio-political and cultural setting.

This article investigates how older adults in French-speaking Switzerland perceive, understand, and enact their moral responsibilities regarding climate change. It foregrounds older adults' environmental action as situated within broader civic participation patterns and moral agency in later life. Drawing on in-depth semi-structured interviews and focus groups with older adults aged 65 to 83, it examines how both direct duties (such as reducing personal greenhouse gas emissions) and indirect duties (such as supporting institutional change) are interpreted and negotiated within the constraints of aging. The article shows how climate responsibilities are shaped by the constraints and opportunities of later life, pointing toward a more context-sensitive articulation of climate responsibilities and a more nuanced understanding of climate duties. It contributes to the understanding of how later life can shape, restrict, or reframe environmental agency, offering valuable insights from aging studies to environmental ethics and public policy.

It is common for a dementia diagnosis to result in a diminution of social relationships and reduced opportunities for social engagement, putting individuals living with dementia at an increased risk of loneliness. Adult day programs provide a space for individuals with dementia to socialize with people who have a shared diagnosis. Previous research on day programs has primarily focused on their potential to reduce participants' responsive behaviours and improve their functional abilities while providing respite for care partners. The potential of day programs to alleviate loneliness by contributing to a sense of belonging has received relatively little attention. In this paper, we share findings from a narrative study during which we heard stories of belonging from program participants. Specifically, using a composite narrative, we highlight the relational capacity of individuals with dementia to engage in mutually rewarding social experiences conducive for belonging. Our findings have implications for better understanding the social benefits brought about by day programs and the role they play in helping to prevent loneliness after a dementia diagnosis.

The rise in aging populations around the globe highlights the increasing significance of designing livable and age-friendly cities to ensure inclusivity. Simultaneously, designing sustainable cities and mitigating carbon emissions are crucial to global warming concerns. However, even if these areas are currently imperatives for improving the built environment, are they considered in a mutually inclusive manner? Although the pursuit of livable cities broadly aligns with the goals of sustainability and decarbonization, the interconnection and synergy between these criteria have not been extensively explored. Therefore, this research aims to uncover the relationship between livability and decarbonization and analyze their combined impact on age-friendly cities. This research first identified the criteria of livability, decarbonization, and aging needs from seminal sources. Then, an integrated model was developed by combining system modeling and mind-mapping approaches to explore the interconnectedness and reciprocal influence between these domains. The results of this study demonstrate that livability and decarbonization are highly connected and contribute differently to aging needs. While decarbonization is the primary instigator, aiming to improve the financial security of older adults, livability criteria mostly serve as the consequential quality, aiming to enhance the overall quality of life for older adults.

As global aging accelerates alongside intensifying climate disruptions, older adults face growing exposure to extreme weather events that threaten their health and well-being. Yet, the experiences of racialized older adults, categorized as those who are non-White or non-Indigenous who often inhabit the intersection of social and ecological shaped by social marginalization, economic disadvantage, and other factors remain insufficiently understood. Guided by an Intersectional Climate Justice lens, this scoping review examined how racialized older adults across diverse contexts experience and respond to climate change-related weather emergencies. Using Arksey and O'Malley's approach, searches across 13 databases yielded 28 studies, most involving community-dwelling older adults. Findings show that racialized older adults face layered vulnerabilities shaped by age-related decline, chronic conditions, low income, limited education, and inadequate housing. These factors, combined with neighborhood disadvantage and environmental exposures, produce profound personal, psychosocial, and health impacts. The review highlights the need for equity-centered climate preparedness grounded in community resilience, care ethics, place-based practices, and meaningful participation of this group in environmental decision-making.

Everyday practices, including technology use, by older adults can significantly change during important life transitions. However, technologies do not always match their evolving needs. This paper examines how older adults reconfigure everyday technology use when navigating major life transitions in later life. We have engaged with fifteen participants living in residential care settings for three years in weekly group activities and individual visits. Through deep and meaningful collaborations, we got to know these residents and their life circumstances closely. We created detailed narratives of the technology use experiences of five residents applying a Narrative Inquiry approach. The narratives focused on how residents adapted their technology practices and devices over time while dealing with significant changes in their everyday lives. Then, we complemented the Narrative Inquiry with a Reflexive Thematic Analysis of the data across the fifteen residents. Our findings show that older adults developed changing technology needs for two main reasons: firstly, to cope with the immediate consequences of the transitions and secondly, to improve entering the new stage of their lives by discovering or maintaining their interests through technology. We propose exploring suitable choices for technologies with older adults that provide continuity and extend their experiences with technology use during transitions. These technologies should enable positive and enriching experiences and counterbalance unsettling feelings and the struggles of change. Our research contributes an understanding of how technologies might support the life transitions of older adults in considering both their individual experiences and the role of wider social networks.

Older immigrants with co-morbidities and functional disabilities require care, which is often provided by their families. While transnational family care for older immigrants has been widely studied, little attention has been paid to those living with dementia. Hong Kong Canadian immigrants are widely recognized as flexible circular transnational migrants, yet dementia restricts the mobility of both older adults and their family carers. Using a transnational lens, this paper reports findings from a qualitative study based on interviews with 13 Hong Kong Canadian immigrant family carers in Vancouver-a city with one of the largest Hong Kong immigrant populations in Canada-about their care experiences. First, flexible migration patterns shape family care dynamics and practices. Second, participants navigate formal care by drawing on two frames of reference: Hong Kong and Canada. Third, families negotiate two cultures of care; while they prefer culturally and linguistically appropriate services, they often adopt a pragmatic approach, relying on available options within the mainstream system. Fourth, information and communication technology (ICT) enables families to sustain care that reflects cultural values across distance. This paper also highlights several practical implications. Practitioners should recognize the migration patterns of immigrant families, while policymakers need to fund and expand ethnocultural services and improve access to ICT within care facilities. ICT can also be leveraged to involve family members residing abroad in care decision-making. This paper contributes to the literature on transnational family care, which has largely focused on general aging, by examining family care in the context of dementia.