Introduction

The introduction chapter introduces the concept of theorising and argues that time has come for scholarship on the intersection between ethnicity/ race and ageing/ old age to engage on a theorising exercise of its own. In doing so, this chapter sets the stage for the idea engaging in a scoping review of the last twenty years of research on this intersection makes sense at this point in time since we need to make sense of which understandings of ethnicity and race inform this scholarship. By arguing for why it is that our imagination needs to be expanded in this regard, this chapter identifies the scholarly fields that work on this intersection (i.e. social gerontology, ethno-gerontology and ethnicity/ race scholarship), and the ways in which these fields have become interested on the intersection in question. Last but not least (and as it is customary), this introduction chapter ends with a description of, and rationale for, how the book is structured.