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Joseph Troisi and Hans-Joachim Von Kondratowitz (eds), Ageing in the Mediterranean. Policy Press, 2013. 384 pp.

What is it like to age, if not gracefully at least comfortably, in the Mediterranean? In what ways do state and regional policies affect one’s chances of doing so? These are among the questions raised by this collection.The main thrust is regional but there are case studies from Portugal, Italy, Israel, Turkey, Lebanon, Tunisia and, of course, Malta.

The last is the subject of a chapter by Joseph Troisi, a professor in the Department of Sociology and the director of the European Centre for Gerontology at the University of Malta. Troisi sums up some of the prospects and policy-related challenges of a rapidly-ageing society.

Among the key issues we find changing family structures and commitments to providing quality care. It turns out that older people, and especially what we call the ‘young old’ (60 to 75), tend to be embedded in circuits of reciprocity (caring for grandchildren and so on) which make them invaluable net contributors to society.

The circumstances of the ‘old old’ (75-plus) make us question how best to provide care which does not unacceptably depart from community.

More broadly, the book itself belongs within three main contexts. The first is that of what one might call a legacy of associations – the fact that, at least as far as the popular imagination is concerned, there exist a number of associations between old age and the Mediterranean.

Mediterranean civilisation itself is no spring chicken. When Don Fabrizio says of his Sicily that “we are old, very old”, he may as well be speaking of the region as a whole.

Second, there is a legacy of a southbound retirement migration, of what Russell King called “sunset lives”.

The Global Retirement Index and such self-appointed oracles of the cosmo-privileged tend to reinforce this legacy.

Third, the region is steeped in romantic notions of time standing still, living museums of humankind, and such.

It is easy to see why images of older people might lend themselves so well to this context. One might also add fantasies like that of a Mediterranean diet which is listed by Unesco as an item of Intangible Cultural Heritage, and which we are assured leads directly to much health and happiness in old age.

The second ambit within which this book belongs is that of Mediterranean studies. It raises – in a critical way, one is happy to say – the perennial methodo-logical question of how, if at all, to study the Mediterranean as a region.

Ageing in the Mediterranean looks set to become an important contribution to the social-gerontological literature. Five themes in particular emerge as key. The first is about the instruments, strengths, and limitations of regional-comparative methodologies. As expected, the book borrows on the concept of a circum-Mediterranean connectivity, as discussed by Horden and Purcell, among others.

Mediterranean countries consistently score high on the rankings of the world’s top retirement destinations

The second theme explores and takes apart the concept of culture as a heuristic tool. I emphasise ‘takes apart’, since a good number among the contributors turn out, rightly in my opinion, to be wary of the double risks of essentialisation and fuzzy generalisations about some sort of pan-Mediterranean culture.

Third, the authors engage with the convergence between kinship and understandings of, and care for, older people in the Mediterranean.

The fourth theme is what sociologists call ‘life course analysis’. This includes topics such as the institutionalisation of the life course and the ways in which different regimes of institutionalisation ultimately translate into all sorts of structures.

Finally, the authors take to task the relations between ageing and the state with reference to the framework of EU institutions. It is possibly here that the comparative side really comes into its own.

Throughout these five themes, the leit motif is that, I quote the last sentence of the book, “to put the Mediterranean into the centre of analysis could serve as a stimulat-ing experience to generate new research perspectives in ageing across the Mediterranean Sea”. As (ageing) inhabitants of the region, that’s a programme we can hardly fault.

Prof. Mark-Anthony Falzon is the Head of the Department of Sociology at the University of Malta.