This book by Sandra Torres is part of a series of books on Ageing in a Global Context. Opening with a series preface by ageing experts Chris Phillipson, Toni Calasanti and Thomas Scharf, Torres seeks to reassess the intersection between ethnicity and research in the field of ageing. This book is a multi-disciplinary endeavour, straddling the fields of social gerontology and ethnicity scholarship.
The book is divided into two main parts: the first part (Chapters 1–3) is dedicated to conceptualising ethnicity theoretically and the second part (Chapters 4–7) is about a scoping review of ethnicity and old age in three topic areas. The main purpose of this book is to reassess the ethnicity and ageing intersections. In this regard, the author has attempted to bridge the intertwined gap of ethnicity, race and culture in social gerontology research and consider thinking about age and ageing research in ethnicity scholarship. The first part of the book would be very useful for students, academics and scholars to look at this area from a fresh perspective, especially in the context of transnationalism and immigration in the Western world. The book summarises and touches upon the interesting academic theories and debates in this area.
In Chapter 2, by employing a centre–periphery dichotomy, the author highlights the fact that ethnicity is not a ‘peripheral’ concept by stating that five of every six people in the world is non-Caucasian (p. 36). In the third chapter, the author tackles a theoretical debate on the definitions and understanding of race and ethnicity. She argues that race and ethnicity, often used interchangeably in the literature, are separate terms with different understandings. She gives an overview of the three main strands of race and ethnicity literature – the primordalist perspective, the structuralist perspective and the social constructionist perspective (Cornell and Hartmann, Reference Cornell, Hartmann, Cornell and Hartmann1988). She argues that race and ethnicity are social constructs that go beyond essentialist arguments based on skin colour, or group characteristics such as religion or national origin. According to the author, ethnicity is a socio-cultural construct that is located in material conditions. However, the author relies heavily on the works of R. Swedberg to support the theoretical underpinnings of her arguments. Other sociologists and scholars from inter-disciplinary fields, particularly from new materialist perspectives, could have been cited as well, in order to develop an even more nuanced understanding of the body of work in this field (e.g. Fox and Alldred, Reference Fox and Alldred2016).
The second part of the book would be particularly useful for policy makers and practitioners to understand the evidence landscape and evidence gaps in the topics of health inequalities, social care and care-giving. The author highlights the fact that the literature is dominated by studies based in the United States of America, and that there is a lack of sufficient literature based in Europe. She identifies themes in each chapter, what the literature says, what are the limitations and what future work can be done to fill the existing evidence gaps. Whilst each chapter is comprehensive in itself, the limitations of the second part of this book lie in that the author only chose to explore three topic areas (health inequalities, social care and care-giving) relevant to the intersections of ethnicity and ageing. Other pertinent issues for older people from ethnic backgrounds could have been discussed.
While the author touched upon finance issues by talking about how immigration laws and pension portability of national pension schemes (or lack thereof) play an important role in the lives of older minority ethnic people, the related topics of finance, pensions and later-life wealth could have been discussed in a more in-depth way due to its relevance in later life (p. 46). Other substantive topic areas to investigate are safe and accessible housing, volunteering, and digital connectivity and inclusion in later life. Discussion of these additional substantive topics could have further enriched the book in lending an overall bird's-eye view on these topics and made the book more holistic in its overall approach.
The final chapter of this book summarises the obstacles to the development of the literature in this area. The author highlights that one of the recurring obstacles in the development of the literature is that similar methodologies are repeatedly used and the absence of innovative methodologies is stifling the creation of new knowledge and insights in these topic areas. The book also includes an appendix listing the methodology, databases used, sampling criteria and number of articles unearthed by topic areas.
This book has chapters that would be relevant to different audiences. This book is immensely valuable and timely in helping to enhance our understanding of ethnicity and age by (a) placing it in the intersections of the social gerontology and ethnicity debate, (b) mapping the evidence landscape of ethnicity and age (specifically on health and care topics) and (c) providing a valuable identification of evidence gaps – useful for academics, scholars and policy makers alike.
