PART I Introduction 1 Introducing rural gerontology PART II Interdisciplinary foundations 2 Demographic ageing and rural population change 3 Rural studies of ageing 4 Rural health and ageing: making way for a critical gerontology of rural health 5 Critical human ecology and global contexts of rural ageing 6 Critical social gerontology and rural ageing PART III Contemporary scope 7 Rural ageing in low- and middle-income countries 8 Rural women, ageing and retirement 9 Rural-urban migration of older people: mobility, adaptation and accessibility 10 Policy and program challenges in delivering health and social care services to rural older people 11 Rural ageing, housing and homelessness 12 Rural ageing and transportation: how a lack of transportation options can leave older rural populations stranded 13 Rural community development in an era of population ageing 14 Making rural communities age-friendly: issues and challenges 15 Rural ageing in place and place attachment 16 Place-bound rural community of older men: social and autobiographical insideness of the Mill Village Boys in Finland 17 Social relations, connectivity and loneliness of older rural people 18 Understanding and performing care in rural contexts in Central Europe PART IV Emerging critical perspectives 19 Postcolonial perspectives on rural ageing in (South) Africa: gendered vulnerabilities and intergenerational ambiguities of older African women 20 Posthumanist traditions and their possibilities for rural gerontology 21 A Deweyan pragmatist perspective on rural gerontology 22 Interrogating the nature and meaning of social exclusion for rural dwelling older people 23 Defining the relationship between active citizenship and rural healthy ageing: a critical perspective 24 A critical view of older voluntarism in ageing rural communities: prospect, precarity and global pandemics 25 Older people and poverty: making critical connections in rural places 26 Critical perspectives on mental health, dementia and rural ageing 27 Rural gerontechnology: arts-based insights into rural ageing and the use of technology 28 Rural older people, climate change and disasters PART V Conclusion 29 Towards a critical rural gerontology