The reablement approach is becoming a popular social and health-care model in many Western countries, providing support strategies for older people experiencing impairment. Reablement programmes have been criticised for a lack of theories, explicating the understanding of the problem that it is intended to address, i.e. ageing and impairment in old age. We need to discuss the inherent theories in intervention programmes to question taken-for-granted assumptions about not only what works, but also how these assumptions affect the sociocultural models of ageing. Theories on successful ageing have been suggested as underpinning reablement. This article aims to present and discuss theories of successful ageing compared to key principles, components and outcomes in reablement. A medical and epidemiological, a psychological and a sociocultural theoretical approach to successful ageing are included. Contemporary reablement programmes mirror medical and psychological theories of successful ageing, including models of ageing that are associated with continuity, optimisation, selection, individuality and goal orientation. Most reablement programmes do not address sociocultural perspectives on ageing. As older people experience impairment in a pertinent liminality within and between the sociocultural values of the third and fourth age, it is important for reablement programmes and practice to consider the theoretical assumptions and underpinning theories of ageing and how to help older people balance between optimising capacity and accepting losses in their everyday life.

As Indonesia experiences rapid growth of the ageing population, the government's attention has turned to the wellbeing of older people. This study aims to review critically the construction of older people's identity and care within regional ageing policies in Indonesia. Working from a critical gerontology perspective, a critical discourse analysis of 16 regional ageing policies identified two constructions, labelled ‘material’ and ‘cultural’ ageing, which were used to position older people. The analysis showed that ‘material ageing’ positions older people at the intersection of ‘decline’ and ‘successful ageing’ discourses, while ‘cultural ageing’ positions older people's welfare at the intersection of ‘public responsibility’ and ‘family obligation’ discourses. These discursive constructions in the policy documents have both micro (interpersonal) and macro (structural) constructive effects. At the micro-level, the regional ageing policies stand at a crossroad between empowering and marginalising older people and their families. While the dominant discourse of ‘successful ageing’ encourages older people to be healthy, it marginalises those who do not, or cannot, meet its criteria, undermining a rehabilitative approach as a policy priority. In addition, the rights of the family are overlooked, despite being a pivotal element of cultural ageing. At the macro level, a moral dilemma appears in defining the public and private domains of older people's welfare. Eligibility requirements for state assistance (due to budgetary constraints) ensure that elder care is often relegated to the private sphere, without support. Recommendations for policy improvement are discussed, including the recognition of families’ rights and the importance of local cultural practices in providing care for older people.

Shortly after emerging in the 1980s, critical gerontology became a recognised part of mainstream gerontology. Under the umbrella of ‘critical gerontology’ sits a number of orientations that draw attention to how ageing is socially located, while foregrounding the importance of values in ageing research. Nevertheless, as critical gerontology is not a clearly defined field or orientation, inconsistencies in the use of ‘critique’ among critical gerontologists has been fermenting internal tensions. In this paper we draw on recent debates on critique as a form of discourse that aims to criticise a deficient social order with the aim of helping to bring about a good society, to identify four discourses of critique. These include the discourses of immanent critique and of transcendent critique, critique that focuses on tensions between these two, and critique that builds on constructive combinations of immanence and transcendence. We add to these an extra level of depth by distinguishing how critical discourse is applied in each case. We use this framework to identify the discourses of critique deployed in variants of critical gerontology. Here, we distinguish political economic, lifecourse, humanistic and culturalist approaches within critical gerontology and assess how each of these applies a discourse of critique. We find that these gerontological perspectives draw on a variety of discourses of critique and make use of varying degrees of engagement with critical discourse. The paper concludes by discussing how critical gerontology may develop as a reflective forum commenting on and integrating insights offered by its own varieties of critique and connecting these with macro-social analyses.

Over the last 15 years, frailty has become a dominant discourse on late life. Taken-for-granted knowledge and practice can be seen in initiatives such as the International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics’ White Book on Frailty. This paper begins with an overview of key themes on frailty from the biomedical literature, followed by critical literature in the social sciences and humanities. It discusses the tensions within the biomedical field, frailty as a social construction and ‘social imaginary’, practices of frailty as historically linked to political systems of care, and frailty as an emotional and relational experience. It then draws on a critical discourse analysis to assess the 2016 White Book on Frailty. Drawing on the idea of ‘significant absences’, the paper highlights the gaps that exist where the social and emotional understandings and political readings of frailty are concerned. The paper concludes by outlining the need to recognise the ‘politics of frailty’ including the power relations that are deeply embedded in the knowledge and practices surrounding frailty, and to incorporate older people's experience and ideas of vulnerability into research, policy and care practice.

As Canada’s population continues to age, social isolation among older people is a growing concern and national-level priority. Although much is known about individual-level risks and negative health outcomes associated with social isolation in later life, the impact of life course trajectories and the more collective experiences are seldom considered. Current definitions and program responses tend to rely on individualized approaches to social isolation. Here, we argue that the conversation be extended to consider the social and cultural aspects of social isolation among older people. Specifically, we suggest that definitions and approaches consider three particular dimensions: temporal factors, spatial factors, and the relationship between social isolation and exclusion. Doing so, we argue, would result in a more inclusive approach to social isolation in late life, and the development of capacity to address social isolation among a wide range of older people, particularly the needs of vulnerable or marginalized groups.

Recent discourses on aging emphasize the value of older people’s social participation. How participation is defined in policy, however, may not correspond with seniors’ realities. This article reports on the results of a critical discourse analysis conducted on aging policy in Quebec between 2005 and 2011. Results indicate that participation definitions can be problematic recommendations, standards, and expectations. Over time, participation increasingly came to be defined as productivity. The participation context also changed from collective responsibility to community adjustment and personal choice. Finally, policy texts reflected a polarization between activity and a loss of autonomy that linked participation with health status. Results suggest that, although innovative in the Canadian context, articulation of participation in Quebec’s recent policies on aging lacks the politics from which to discuss difference, otherness, and access to participative opportunities. The case of older people’s aging with disabilities illustrates the challenges of the new participatory agenda.

This article examines the utility of the concept of resilience to the field of critical gerontology. Resilience is an increasingly popular concept within the social sciences. We explore some key ideas about individual and social resilience from varied fields, and propose new ways to conceptualise these in relation to resilience in later life. This article examines the history of the concept of resilience; explores some of the diverse ways that gerontologists are attempting to apply it to later life; and discusses the strengths and weaknesses of using resilience as a conceptual framework within critical ageing research. We also suggest ways of conceptualising resilience and ageing, highlighting the different scales of resilience that impact on the ability of older people to negotiate adversity, and some key areas of resilience relevant to later life. The example of mobility resilience is used to illustrate how different scales of resilience operate within an area of resilience central to the ageing experience. Finally, some key principles for the use of resilience within critical gerontology are outlined, providing guidance on how to maximise the potential of the concept whilst avoiding some of the limitations associated with its historical usage.

There has been very limited debate about the usefulness of links between later life and disability studies. The paper reviews the arguments for and against a closer association. The social model of disability makes crucial the separation of disability from impairment and shows that it is society that does the disabling. This is never so clear as in the case of housing policies for older people, the focus of this article. Older people suffer discrimination and have to submit to a medical model of later life if they receive health or social care services. The argument against an association between later life studies and disability studies is that later life is an immensely diverse experience, much of it nothing to do with disability. Moreover, some older people reject the negative connotation when later life is equated with disability. The paper argues, however, for a specific application of the social model of disability to the situation of older people with impairments who receive services. It also asserts that the social model of disability can be accommodated in critical gerontology and, in particular, in a post-modern perspective. The paper concludes with examples of the value of the social model of disability at both the policy and political levels.

In this article I critically examine the biology/culture dualism in the context of old age. Regarding the contextualisation of the interrelationship between biology and culture, previous studies have not adequately explored the interaction between the physiological process of ageing, the physical and social surroundings of the body and the body's intentionality. I suggest ways in which anthropological and feminist advances in deconstructions and reconstructions of the body can be deployed in the study of old age. In particular I draw upon Margaret Lock's concept of ‘local biology’. This offers an opportunity for the development of gerontological theory that focuses upon the interactions between the ageing body, its experience and its locality.