Abstract

SIR RETAMALES, Hugo Nicolás. Does “Outside of Work” Exist? Biomedicine, Work, and Old Age in Chile. Sociológica (Méx.) [online]. 2018, vol.33, n.94, pp.203-234. ISSN 2007-8358.

This article looks at the aging process in the Chilean population from the point of view of the affinity between the biomedical perspective and the centrality of work in the era of the emergence of “the third age,” posing the difficulty that from here is derived its approximation to older adults’ well-being, leading to medicalization due to defect or excess. First, the author points to certain methodological considerations in his research; then, he looks at the complexities of the notion of age from a relations-based approach, reconstructing it in view of the place work occupies in our societies. Understanding old age as a test of dis-obligation in the sense given the term by Araujo and Martuccelli, the author asks himself about the possibility of the existence of an “outside,” and concludes that it has been created in a medicalized way.

Keywords : old age; biomedicine; medicalization of old age; governance; work.