Ratifying frailty

Moreira, Tiago

doi:10.1016/j.jaging.2022.101055

Ratifying frailty

Moreira, Tiago

Authors

Professor Tiago Moreira tiago.moreira@durham.ac.uk
Professor

Abstract

Taking as a point of departure the role that the category of frailty increasingly plays in the classification, sorting and management of ageing populations in contemporary societies, this paper focuses on the crafting and validation of mouse models of frailty. The paper suggests that such models embody therapeutic and techno-economic expectations of ageing research, particularly as these are re-invigorated by current attempts to manipulate or eradicate cell senescence. The paper brings together critical gerontology, social studies of science and more-than-human anthropology to contextualise and analyse ethnographic data collected during fieldwork in a biology of ageing laboratory. The paper proposes that to build a mouse model of frailty, researchers need to learn to ‘think like a mouse’, provisionally taking the animal's point of view, to then efface that link and reconfigure the scientific chain of reference that enables translation between humans and mouse models of frailty.

Citation

Moreira, T. (2022). Ratifying frailty. Journal of Aging Studies, 62, Article 101055. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaging.2022.101055

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Jun 20, 2022
Online Publication Date	Jul 8, 2022
Publication Date	2022
Deposit Date	Aug 1, 2022
Publicly Available Date	Aug 1, 2022
Journal	Journal of Aging Studies
Print ISSN	0890-4065
Publisher	Elsevier
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	62
Article Number	101055
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaging.2022.101055