Outdated and re-configured: Challenging linear conceptualizations of ageing through the case of revived obsolete technologies

Abstract

Taking as a starting point the conventional view of ageing as a linear process beginning in a youthful and productive stage but gradually deteriorating, this paper shifts the usual anthropocentric focal point towards technological artifacts which do not conform to this typical view. More specifically, three examples of technologies previously considered obsolete, but which have seen a revival in the last decade, are presented: the so-called dumbphones, analogue cameras, and vinyl players. Although very different at first glance, the three cases of these revived technologies show a similar evolution trajectory which breaks from the typical view of ageing in technological artifacts. Instead, they indicate how their revival does not simply entail a reconsideration of their initial value (such as it is often the case with antiques or heirlooms), but a transformation, hybridisation, and re-envisioned purpose.

To this effect, the agential realism theory is applied to show how the revival of technological artifacts and practices once considered outdated attempts to dissolve binaries such as old/new, young/old, or slow/fast. Furthermore, such artifacts reveal trajectories of ageing that are unlike their human counterparts, but which can make way for new manners of articulating issues pertaining to ageing as a process in humans as well.

The contribution of the paper lies in illustrating how adopting a non-linear view of ageing and fundamentally questioning its inherent binaries has the capacity to produce a much-needed nuanced view of ageing in humans, non-humans, and their sociomaterial entanglements.