Aging in a Changing World

This is a story about aging in place in a world of global movement. Around the world, many older people have stayed still but have been profoundly impacted by the movement of others. Without migrating themselves, many older people now live in a far “different country” than the one of their memories. Recently, the Brexit vote and the 2016 election of Trump have re-enforced prevalent stereotypes of “the racist older person”. This book challenges simplified images of the old as racist, nostalgic and resistant to change by taking a deeper, more nuanced look at older people’s complex relationship with the diversity and multiculturalism that has grown and developed around them. Aging in a Changing World takes a look at how some older people in New Zealand have been responding to and interacting with the new multiculturalism they now encounter in their daily lives. Through their unhurried, micro, daily interactions with immigrants, they quietly emerge as agents of the very social change they are assumed to oppose.

Aging in a Changing World challenges simplified images of old people as racist, nostalgic, and resistant to change – stereotypes that have only grown more prevalent with the Brexit vote and the 2016 election of Donald Trump. This book takes a deep, nuanced look at the experiences of older people who, while “aging in place,” have been profoundly impacted by global population movement and the dramatic development of modern multiculturalism around them.

MOLLY GEORGE is a research fellow at the Centre for Pacific Health and the Department of General Practice and Rural Health at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand.

List of Illustrations 
1 Aging in Times of Great Change 
2 Global Movement, Everyday Multiculturalism, and Aging 
3 Constructing the Field and Recruiting the Urban Stranger 
4 “Then and Now”: Narratives of Change 
5 Older New Zealanders’ Immigration-Related Concerns 
6 A Surprise Twist? Older New Zealanders as Approachable and Accepting 
7 Mentoring “Kiwiness” 
8 Cosmopolitan Cadences 
9 Conclusions 
Acknowledgments
Notes 
References 
Index