This chapter identifies and discusses alternative and flexible interpretations of transition in late life. Rooted in the narratives presented in Chapter Six, it highlights themes that challenge suggested models of how older people ‘ought’ to experience the changes associated with growing old. It reconsiders the forms of transition that have become common place in social science approaches, including the idea that individuals move across a linear and stable backdrop as they age. In particular, this chapter draws attention to the challenges of fixed interpretations of age and stage, linear progression through the lifecourse, the tendency to focus on the individual, and the extent of control or choice that mark dominant understandings of continuity and change across the lifecourse. In order to reconsider transition in late life, material is presented according to five intersecting themes: passage and liminality; multiple and intersecting forms of transition; events, social locations and identity; linked lives and relational notions of transition; and continuity/adaptation in relation to lifelong disadvantage. Themes drawn from older people's experiences in the late life transitions project related to the accounts presented in Chapter Six point to the variations experienced in late life under contemporary conditions; that is, they provide evidence of just how the lifecourse may be more fluid or subjective than previously understood, and suggest fresh models for rethinking transition in late life. Bringing these themes together with current knowledge in the academic literature can help to better understand movement, continuity and change across the lifecourse. At the theoretical level, the themes also connect the approaches of critical gerontology with those of narrative and the lifecourse perspective. Questions that guide the analysis in this chapter include:

• • How do older people define and understand their lifecourse transitions? What types of trend and innovation exist?

• • How do the models used by older people correspond or conflict with those expressed in policy frameworks and the academic literature?

Table 7.1 highlights the challenges that older people's accounts raise in relation to dominant understandings of transition in late life. On the left, the table lists five dominant tendencies that characterise understandings of transition. On the right, it lists the concepts derived from older people's accounts. Material in the chapter is organised and discussed in relation to these challenges and insights.