Old age and vulnerability between first, second and third person perspectives. Ethnographic explorations of aging in contemporary Denmark

•The paper is based on a study exploring perceptions and experiences of vulnerability in old age in contemporary Denmark•The paper seeks to move beyond rigid dichotomies that have characterized the study of old age•The ethnographic fieldwork documented the composite and complex nature of vulnerability and old age•The paper applies an analytical distinction between first, second and third person perspectives • Individual experience, social interaction and discursive context are crucial for understanding vulnerability in old age

This paper is based on an ethnographic fieldwork aimed at exploring ethnographically how vulnerability in old age is perceived and experienced in contemporary Denmark. The fieldwork showed remarkable differences between two phases of the fieldwork: the first addressing vulnerability from the “outside” through group interviews with professionals, leaders and older people who were not (yet) vulnerable; and the second from the “inside” through more in depth fieldwork with older people who in diverse ways could be seen as vulnerable. After a short introduction to anthropological and social gerontological literature on characteristics of “Western” aging: medicalization, successful, healthy and active aging, I present findings from both phases of this ethnographic fieldwork arguing that the ethnographic approach reveals the composite and complex nature of vulnerability in old age and the constant interactions between first, second and third person perspectives. Through these methodological and analytical moves a complex and empirically tenable understanding of vulnerability in old age has emerged which 1. moves beyond rigid dichotomies that have characterized the study of old age, 2. integrates individual experience, social interaction and the structural and discursive context into the analysis, and 3. reveals the complex interplay between vulnerability and agency in diverse situations and settings of old age.