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Social change in the 21st century is shaped by both demographic changes associated with ageing societies and significant technological change and development. Outlining the basic principles of a new academic field, Socio-gerontechnology, this book explores common conceptual, theoretical and methodological ideas that become visible in the critical scholarship on ageing and technology at the intersection of Age Studies and Science and Technology Studies (STS). Comprised of 15 original chapters, three commentaries and an afterword, the book explores how ageing and technology are already interconnected and constantly being intertwined in Western societies. Topics addressed cover a broad variety of socio-material domains including care robots, the use of social media, ageing in place technologies, the performativity of user involvement and public consultations, dementia care and many others. Together, they provide a unique understanding of ageing and technology from a social sciences and humanities perspective and contribute to the development of new ontologies, methodologies and theories that might serve as both critique of, and inspiration for, policy and design. International in scope, including contributions from the UK, Canada, USA, Germany, Norway, Denmark, Austria, The Netherlands, Spain and Sweden, Socio-gerontechnology is an agenda-setting text that will provide an introduction for students and early career researchers as well as more established scholars that are interested in ageing and technology.

Chapter 9 EPDF available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. Drawing on affect theory and research on academic capitalism, this book examines the contemporary crisis of universities. With 11 international and comparative case studies, it offers a unique exploration of the contemporary role of affect in academic labour and the organisation of scholarship and explores diverse features of contemporary academic life, from the coloniality of academic capitalism to performance management and the experience of being performance-managed.

AbstractThis article is a critical interdisciplinary study of biohacking as a specific case of transhumanism and its goals of enhancement and age intervention. It focuses on the organising principles underlying the biohacking movement's relationship to ageing and technoscience. The argument traces how the historical and scientific body technologies of molecularisation, functional age, optimisation, and quantification made possible the biohacking vision of the ageing body as amenable to modification, enhancement and improvement beyond its natural limits. Conclusions consider the wider implications of biohacking by pointing out four important issues that frame our cultural ambivalence about ageing: the tension between biohacking's supposedly liberating enhancement technologies and their obeisance to a tyranny of self‐disciplinary practices and the authority of bio‐data; the social meaning of biohacking hierarchies of human value, based on modifiable fitness and enhanceable performance; the implications of the biohacking program for gendered ageism; and the ethical limits of biohacking, not only in terms of potential harms to a person but what it can mean to exceed the natural limits of life.

The relationship between democracy and design has been the topic of significant discussion in the design community. It is also at the core of participatory design that relies on the principle of genuine participation. According to this, users are not mere informants but legitimate participants in the design process. A great deal of participatory design, however, is driven by instrumental logics rather than participatory and democratic principles. In analysing these power relations, science and technology studies (STS) provides the starting point to introduce the concepts of 'engineering an atmosphere' (i.e. the process) and 'engineered atmosphere' (i.e. the outcome). These concepts problematise the principles and modes of participatory design, highlighting the tensions between economic and social agendas and top-down and bottom-up interactions. This problematic can be shown in the way that new teachnologies are targeted at older populations, necessitating an interrogation of the processes underpirnning the design and development of technological products and devices. It is important to reflect on who is included and who is excluded from technological design and innovation, which is always, and necessarily so, a fluid process.