Faces and Masks of Aging: Implications from the lives of Japanese elderly

While the elderly populations in developed nations increase, elderly people are still often perceived as separate, with lives that are unrelated to those of more socially dominant age groups, and as uniform, without the range of individual variation found in youth. They tend to be seen as the target of health care, as consumers of social security savings, and as reminders of inevitable and fateful decline. In terms of their language, the decreased ability caused by age and illness has attracted more attention than the content and

intention of their speech. Closer investigations of individual lives of the elderly reveal, however, emotional depth and complexity in this frequently misunderstood and undeservedly marginalized group.

This three-day conference will focus on qualitative investigations of the lives of the elderly from a cross-cultural perspective. The principal aims of the conference are:

(1) to start a conversation and

collaboration on qualitative aspects of lives of the elderly among researchers in Japan and the U.S. who are working in various academic fields,

(2) to create and sustain a public dialogue on aging issues in Japan and the U.S., and

(3) to encourage greater attention to the latter part of the life-span by illuminating the richness of the language and lives of the elderly and by offering evidence against the

simple decrement-based "ageist" view.