The anti-ageing enterprise: Science, knowledge, expertise, rhetoric and values

Our editorial outlines the nature of anti-ageing and its significance for the understanding of ageing and the condition of old age. It reviews the approaches from the existing literature and explains why it is necessary to widen the debate and explore the cultural significance of anti-ageing endeavours. We are concerned that, in its naturalisation of old age as a problematic biological process which can only be overcome by biology, the anti-ageing enterprise masks very important social and cultural issues which have hitherto been under-explored. The value of this volume lies in the fact that it is the first time those engaged in empirical social science research into the phenomenon have come together to present their data and analyses. The nine papers in the special edition are outlined and their contribution highlighted. These contributions enable us to move beyond debates simply based in a priori reasoning from established ethical and professional perspectives and into an understanding of how specific groups of people understand, respond to and seek to modify the process of ageing.