More-than-Human Aging

Animals, Robots, and Care in Later Life

By Cristina Douglas and Andrew Whitehouse; Foreword by Jay Sokolovsky; Afterword by Susan McHugh

SERIES: Global Perspectives on Aging

Rutgers University Press

What does later life look like when it is lived in the companionship of other species? Similarly, how do other species age (or not) with humans, and what sort of (a)symmetries, if any, are brought to light around how we understand and think about aging? So far, aging has been investigated in the social sciences in purely human terms. This is the first collection of original work that considers aging as taking place in relation to other species. This volume aims to start a conversation about aging by taking its more-than-human participants seriously—that is, not only as a support for or context of human aging but also, more symmetrically, as agents and subjects in the process of aging. The contributors draw upon richly descriptive ethnographic accounts, including moments of connection between seniors and dogs in a long-term care facility, human care for aging laboratory animals, and robotic companionship in later life. The ethnographies in this volume not only enrich our understanding of more-than-human companionship during the human aging process but also challenge and urge us to rethink what it means to live later in life in ecologically entangled social and moral worlds.

From the companion species and robotic seals found in care homes to the never-aging and sacrificial animals populating laboratories, the contributors to More-than-Human Aging make the compelling demand that our understandings of aging reach beyond humanity. A timely and important contribution. Gregory Hollin, Wellcome Trust research fellow, University of Sheffield

This innovative anthology is a must-read for anyone related to the aging process. It covers the field from robot companionship to that of animals in literature. The well-documented chapters by scholars from various disciplines and parts of the world nicely portray the fictive kin relationship of animals to humans. Reciprocity is alive and well with animal-human interactions. George E. Dickinson, co-author of Understanding Dying, Death, and Bereavement

A fascinating collection that moves, breaks down, and redefines the boundary lines between the aging humans and a dense world of more-than-human agents. Equally provocative and playful, this collection embraces fresh concepts and methodologies that propel our capacity to imagine worlds of aging and care that extend and entangle with others. A unique and groundbreaking book that deserves to be read widely across aging studies, and will no doubt animate many discussions and debates for years to come. Jason Danely, author of Fragile Resonance: Caring for Older Family Members in Japan and England

CRISTINA DOUGLAS is a medical anthropologist and a PhD candidate in social/medical anthropology at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland.

ANDREW WHITEHOUSE is a lecturer in anthropology at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. He is a coeditor of Landscapes beyond Land: Routes, Aesthetics, Narratives.

JAY SOKOLOVSKY is a professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg. He is the editor of The Cultural Context of Aging, 4th edition, and author of Indigenous Mexico Engages the 21st Century: A Multimedia-Enabled Text.

SUSAN McHUGH is a professor of English at the University of New England in Biddeford, Maine. She is the author of Love in a Time of Slaughters: Human-Animal Stories against Extinction and Genocide and Animal Stories: Narrating across Species Lines.

Foreword: A Book to Think and Become With
JAY SOKOLOVSKY
Introduction: Aging in More-Than-Human Companionship
CRISTINA DOUGLAS AND ANDREW WHITEHOUSE
Part I Humans Aging in More-Than-Human Companionship
1 Caring Canines: Images of “Home” in Continuing Care
ARDRA COLE AND SUSAN MACLEOD
2 Becoming Old with a Dog: Human-Animal Entanglements in Later-Life Transitions
NETE SCHWENNESEN AND DANIEL LÓPEZ GÓMEZ
3 Of Dogs, Humans, and Lives Worth Living: Thinking with Dogs about Later Life, Living with Dementia, and More-Than-Human Companionship
CRISTINA DOUGL AS
4 Aging with Companion Animals: More-Than-Human Agency, Digital and Sensory Intimacies, and Care
INGRID RICHARDSON AND LARISSA HJORTH
5 Baby Seals and Armless Robots: Is This What Care in Later Life Is Made Of?
CATHRINE DEGNEN AND KATIE BRITTAIN
6 How to Be a Good Robot? Human–Nonhuman Play in Dementia Care
RUUD HENDRIKS AND IKE KAMPHOF
Part II Other-Than-Humans Aging in Human Companionship
7 The Invisibility of the Aging Laboratory Animal
LESLEY A . SHARP
8 Then There Were 3, 2, 1, 0: Grieving with and for a Murine Family
SAMANTHA HURN
9 Posthuman Professionalism: Interspecies Entanglements and Clinical End of Life Care
VANESSA ASHALL, JOANNA L AT IMER, AND CARRIE FRIESE
Afterword: On Old Human and Other Animal Characters
SUSAN McHUGH
Acknowledgments
Notes on Contributors
Index

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