Introduction

We begin this commentary by underscoring the usefulness of the distinction made by Jan Baars and Chris Phillipson in Chapter Two, between contingent and existential ageing. As they define these terms, contingent ageing refers to ‘… limitations that are neither inherent in human life nor inevitable in senescing …’, while existential ageing refers to ‘vulnerabilities that are inherent in human life and will manifest themselves inevitably as people live longer.’ This important distinction resurfaces in a number of complex ways throughout the chapters of this volume, and we employ it as one of two organising themes for this commentary chapter. The enduring theme of the tension between theory and practice arises in fresh ways in several of the chapters, and we focus on this tension as a second organising theme for our comments. We serially adopt these two sets of tensions – between (a) contingent and existential ageing and (b) theory and practice – as the primary frameworks within which to organise our comments on this set of informative and provocative chapters.

Contingent and existential ageing

Before proceeding to a discussion of individual chapters with reference to the contingent/existential distinction, the distinction itself warrants some further clarification and elaboration. First, we note the contingent/existential distinction largely reflects a social science/humanities divide, especially if one begins from a critical social science orientation. Social science seeks to explicate the role of social and institutional forces in shaping both culture and individual lives, including individual ageing. It is thus inherent in the logic of this approach to interrogate not just individual outcomes and individual differences but also their sources, and to explore whether variation across individuals may be accounted for in the social contexts within which the individual in question is immersed. By contrast, humanities scholars often tend to focus most fundamentally on the character of the experience and explore its depths, dimensions, boundaries and possibilities on its own terms.

Second, as we understand these terms, neither contingent nor existential ageing need be seen as inherently limited to ‘limitations’ and ‘vulnerabilities’.