Successful Aging: Best Agers/Best Places. Successful Aging and Spatial Human Differentiation (E01 (ehem.A04))

• Subject Area: European and American Literary and Cultural Studies
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 442261292

Using the USA as a case in point, the project explores how age-based human differentiation creates new spaces in which successful aging is produced and performed. In these spaces, older people emerge as autonomous consumers. The project analyzes three exemplary spaces (The Villages, Florida; Cruise Ships; University-Based Retirement Communities) and relates them to processes of segregation and self-segregation. The project examines these spaces for “best agers” regarding urban planning and narrative framing and discusses how they may open up new perspectives on age, consumption, and infrastructure.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres
• Subproject of: SFB 1482: Studies in Human Differentiation
• Applicant Institution: Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
• Project Heads: Professorin Dr. Mita Banerjee; Dr. Ruth Gehrmann