Adopting a pan-African slant to issues about ageing, this volume brings together some of the most prolific and skilful researchers working on ageing in Africa today. Based on sociolinguistic and anthropological research conducted in different regions of Southern, West and East Africa and in different types of communities, the data and their interpretation are characterized by the richness, typicity and authenticity of both narratives and ethnographical fieldwork.

Sinfree Makoni, Long Island University, New York, USA Koen Stroeken, Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium

Contents: Introduction: Towards transdisciplinary studies on Ageing in Africa, Sinfree Makoni and Koen Stroeken. Narratives and the Construction of Elderliness: Towards a cultural and linguistic construction of late-life dementia in an urban African population, Monica Ferreira and Sinfree Makoni; Identity management and old age construction among Xhosa-speakers in urban South Africa: complaint discourse revisited, Andreas Sagner; Imprints of history and economy across the life course of an elderly Namaqualander 1920-1996, Robin Oakley. Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Ageing and Seniority: From shrub to log: the ancestral dimension of elderhood among the Sukuma of Tanzania, Koen Stroeken; Coming of age and authority: milk as a source of power in Himbaland, Northern Namibia, Steven Van Wolputte; Social categories and seniority in a house-based society, Alexis B. Tengan. Crises and Strategies of Elderhood: Holding up the sky: gender, age and work among the Abuluyia of Kenya, Maria G. Cattell; Rhetoric of remembrance: privileged authority of the elders and the contested graduations of seniority, Stella Nyanchama-Okemwa; 'They don't listen': contemporary respect relations between Zulu grandmothers and grandchildren, Valerie Mÿller and Ayanda Sotshongaye; The toilet: dignity, privacy and care of elderly people in Kwahu, Ghana, Sjaak van der Geest; 'They do talk to us like children': language and intergenerational discourse in first-time encounters in an African township, Sinfree Makoni; Skeletons of the past, flesh and blood of the present: remembrance and older people in a South African context, Els van Dongen; Epilogue: African gerontology: critical models, future directions, René Devisch, Sinfree Makoni and Koen Stroeken; Dedication; Index.