Trent Center for Aging and Society, Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada.
John Richards Initiative, La Trobe University, Wodonga, Australia.
Gerontologist. 2018 Jan 18;58(1):15-25. doi: 10.1093/geront/gnx094.
Informed by a critical turn underway in rural gerontology, this article explores how the intersection of global and local trends relating to population aging and rural change create contested spaces of rural aging. The aim is to build our understanding of rural as a dynamic context within which the processes, outcomes, and experiences of aging are created, confronted, and contested by older adults and their communities. A review of key developments within gerontology and rural studies reveals how competing policies, discourses, and practices relating to healthy aging and aging in place, rural citizenship and governmentality, and social inclusion and inequality combine in particular ways to empower or disempower a diverse range of older rural adults aging in a diverse range of rural communities. The article provides a contextually sensitive perspective on potential sources of conflict and exclusion for older adults in dynamic rural spaces and further enhances our understanding of how rural physical and social environments are constructed and experienced in older age. A framework for interrogating emergent questions about aging in rural contexts is developed and implications for advancing research, policy, and practice are discussed.
受农村老年学中正在进行的批判性转向的启发，本文探讨了与人口老龄化和农村变化相关的全球和地方趋势的交集如何创造了农村老龄化的有争议空间。目的是增进我们对农村作为一个动态背景的理解，在这个背景下，老年人及其社区创造、面对和挑战老龄化的过程、结果和经验。对老年学和农村研究中的关键发展的回顾揭示了与健康老龄化和就地老龄化、农村公民身份和治理以及社会包容和平等相关的竞争政策、话语和实践是如何以特定的方式结合在一起的，从而赋予或剥夺了多样化的、在多样化的农村社区中老龄化的老年农村成年人的权力。本文从敏感的角度探讨了动态农村空间中老年人潜在的冲突和排斥来源，并进一步增强了我们对农村物质和社会环境在老年时是如何构建和体验的理解。本文还提出了一个用于探究农村背景下老龄化新出现问题的框架，并讨论了推进研究、政策和实践的意义。
