AAGE will be holding its biennial conference in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA) at the El Dorado Hotel & Spa in Santa Fe, NM on March 26-30, 2024. We are adopting the theme of SfAA’s meeting—“Enchantment and Transformation”—and adapting it to our concerns with aging, gerontology, and the life course.
Is enchantment necessary for personal, social, and structural transformation? Forms of enchantment might be a fantasy of the next stage of life that propels one to a new status and position, or the playfulness which allows one to assume new subjectivities and ways of being in the world. How is enchantment part of different life stages, and how does its role change over the life course? Are some transitions more subject to explicitly manipulative enchantments through advertisements or public media, and how do people identify with and/or critique these images generating desire? What enchantments, such as sexuality or new social relations, might older people discover in their aging that are not anticipated by dominant narratives of the life course? Lauren Berlant suggests that enchantments are cruel, binding us through our desire into existing structural arrangements and narratives of the life course that do not work for everyone. Is this so? How can we harness enchantment, play, and dreaming towards social justice, belonging, and other applied ends?
We invite papers, posters, or panels that consider these questions, although we are open to presentations on any theme related to aging, gerontology, and the life course. We particularly appreciate work that considers how research can be used for practical solutions and that affects popular discourses of aging, gerontology, and the life course in our everyday worlds.
The abstract submission deadline is October 15, 2023. Conference registration is required to submit an abstract (of no more than 100 words). To begin the registration process and learn about participation options, please go to the SfAA portal: https://www.appliedanthro.org/annual-meeting. You do not need to be a member of SfAA to submit an abstract or present at the conference. When you submit your abstract, you will have the opportunity to designate AAGE as the reviewing body. You do need to be an AAGE member to be reviewed by AAGE. You can become an AAGE member or renew your membership at: https://anthropologyandgerontology.com/.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to any members of the AAGE conference planning committee: Sherri Briller, Cati Coe, Celeste Pang, and Aaron Seaman.
We hope you can join us!
