Paper long abstract:

Since the end of the 1990s the WHO and the EU have proposed active ageing as the solution to the challenge of ageing populations. Active ageing rearticulates the possibilities of old age, by positioning the ageing process as malleable and proposing longer work lives and healthier lifestyles as key for an economically sustainable organisation of society.

As I have argued together with Tiago Moreira, active ageing is a multiple knowledge-driven policy that attempts to unmake old age through an operationalisation of a variety of forms and standards based on different epistemes (Lassen & Moreira 2014, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jaging.2014.03.004).

In this paper I elaborate on the 'investments in form' (Thevenot 1984) of active ageing policies. Models such as population pyramids and dependency ratios are epistemic forms that the EU active ageing policies invest in. I argue that the investments in epistemic forms are supplemented with investments in problems of everyday practises, such as dependence and passivity. As such, I propose everyday practices to be a co-constituent of knowledge-driven policies and demonstrate how epistemic forms, everyday practices and governing are entangled. This paper demonstrates the way this entanglement produce specific ideals of the good late life in active ageing policies.