AGEING AND DIYBIO: Prolegomena to Any Future Gerontology as Citizen Science

This article proposes a philosophical reformulation of ageing in the light of do-it-yourself biology (DIY biology) and citizen science. Rather than treating ageing solely as physiological decline or a problem of health-care management, it is described as a biosemiotic and biopsychosocial process: a continuous interpretation of bodily, environmental, and cultural signs, mediated by technologies, institutions, and communities. Drawing on contemporary work in biosemiotics, the biopsychosocial model of health, and the disease–illness–sickness triad, the article argues that ageing cannot be adequately understood or governed without the active participation of citizens as co-interpreters and co-producers of the knowledge that concerns them. Within this framework, DIY biology and community laboratories are presented as privileged arenas of epistemic and ethical experimentation, where relations between citizenship and biomedicine are reconfigured. The discussion contrasts the imaginary of transhumanist perfection—which seeks to suppress ageing as a design flaw—with a prohumanist account of improvement grounded in measure, shared vulnerability, and the notion of dignified longevity. On this basis, the concept of ‘DIY active ageing’ is introduced as a programme of citizen gerontology in which body, knowledge, and community form feedback loops of semiotic and practical transformation, illustrated through the heuristic figure of an ideal community laboratory, DIY-Aging Lab®.