Rural change and the elderly in rural places: Commentaries from New Zealand

Rural New Zealand has been transformed in the last decade. Policies progressively introduced by the state since 1984 have led to significant changes in the economic and social fabric of rural places. While macro-economic changes have attracted comment, the local impacts on some groups have not been widely documented and are not well understood. This paper seeks to reveal some of the effects of ‘restructuring’ on the rural elderly by reporting comments on individual life experiences. Two intentions underlie this endeavour; to make evident and valorise the lived experience of a group often overlooked in rural places and to comment on the reflection of this lived experience in contemporary approaches to rural studies.