Paper Short Abstract:

I explore how AgeTech industries in different countries and older people conceptualise and imagine divergently future ageing lives with technologies. My argument suggests a stronger anthropological focus and intervention in ageing futures.

Paper Abstract:

The conceptualisation of future ageing as a crisis, or also called as ageing tsunami, is eliciting an uncontrolled advent of smart home technologies that will ostensibly care for older adults. A prominent crisis often found in industry reports and bioengineering papers is falling. This crisis is deeply rooted in economic and care considerations to relieve insurance, family carers, healthcare, and governments players which envision falling or ageing demographics as emerging business opportunities to leverage through AgeTech. Yet, the deployment of AgeTech also entails questions such as health and socialisation norms, condescension, surveillance, control, ageism which are often overlooked (let alone asking older people what they think).

At the same time, industries in alternative countries contest AgeTech interventions in North-America, Europe, etc. Alternative industries suggest that ageing within familial setups (common practice in e.g. India or Mexico) or ageing with pets contradict the tenet of the Ageing in Place paradigm that largely relies on wealthy and frail older people living alone. Furthermore, a ‘successful’ deployment of AgeTech in the north(s) might be hampered by the lack of basic internet access in large parts of e.g. Australia or USA.

These arguments are rooted in my PhD fieldwork, which focuses on industry and older people’s conceptualisations of future ageing lives with technologies. My methods include video-ethnographic home tours in older people’s homes, interviews with AgeTech industry experts in different countries drawing on comic-strips, and a review of industry reports. Here, I suggest a stronger anthropological intervention in future AgeTech -beyond a critique.