It is acknowledged that globalization is becoming more and more important for establishing a better understanding ageing and later life. The effects of the global economic crisis have destabilized many of the assumptions and policies around old age and challenged assumptions about ageing and place. These transformations increasingly question what has been described as the ‘methodological nationalism’ of much gerontological research. However, we would argue that globalization has often been under-theorised within gerontology and within research on older age. This paper outlines the differing ways in which gerontologists have conceived and deployed definitions of globalization. Drawing on Appadurai’s model of differentiated dimensions of globalization we argue for the need to move away from unidimensional conceptualisations of globalization and towards the examination of how these dimensions, from the economic to the cultural, combine to create the uneven landscapes of global ageing. We contend that globalization should not be simply reduced to one over-riding logic which leads to ‘a race to the bottom’. Neither should it be ‘added’ un-problematically to existing gerontological theories and approaches as just one more factor to take into consideration. Our paper argues that the relationship between globalization and later life is not simply about determining structures but is also about the changes to their lives that older people themselves have brought about through their own social and cultural engagements. These differing levels are now increasingly central to understanding the implications of the global transformation of ageing and later life.
展开▼
