A new agenda: where we are at and need to head for

Abstract

This chapter discusses the array of obstacles to the advancement of scholarship on ethnicity/ race and ageing/ old age that the book has exposed through the scoping review performed. The chapter argues that in the imagination of the scholarship of ethnicity and old age as it stands today, ethnic and racial older minorities come from a limited number of socio-cultural contexts and backgrounds. The groups that have received attention are being studied because they are assumed to be not only different from but also disadvantaged when compared to their ethnic majority counterparts, whose ‘privileged race’ need not be interrogated. The imagination in question does not presume that ethnic and racial minorities can experience privilege and neither does it acknowledge that ethnic and racial majorities can oppress. In light of this (as well as other aspects), this chapter argues that the imagination of the scholarship in focus is content with shedding light on the inequalities that ethnic and racial minorities experience but lacks a commitment to combating the injustices that these groups are believed to face. Against this backdrop, this chapter urges scholars to re-think what it is we want to accomplish when we bring attention to the nexus of ethnicity, race and old age.