ABSTRACT
The 'relational turn' in geography and geographical gerontology appears to have generated a greater focus on the active relationships of people and places in daily life. Although 'the relational' in ageing and place inquiry had been signaled by Rowles's pioneering studies, Cutchin suggested a need to move beyond the humanistic theorisation of the relationship. While instabilities of person–place relationships in later life are not always concurrent with significant transitions, they sometimes are. All people encounter the world in a continual way through transactions with various types of places. The instabilities of person and place, and their transitions through time, necessitate a continual set of adjustments. Those adjustments are often considered negotiations in a relational view to account for holism and the co-constitution of place and person. A concomitant evolution of methodological approaches to understand and explain person-place processes has occurred.
