This chapter operates in four main movements. First, it presents the Vineyard region: its geographical features, its political organisation, its demography and the inhabitants, and a few relevant facts about its cultural history that help situate its current transformation. Second, it presents the genesis of the new ‘medico-social plan’ that frames the policies of housing and ageing in the region and thus reshapes the landscape of care. Third, it retraces the movements of its recent evolution, from its planning to its implementations, with its various setbacks. The dialogical position of the researchers, and their potential role in these changes, are finally discussed. A short synthesis closes the chapter.

The exploration proposed here is pursued through a complex, regional case study. Regional case studies enable delineating a portion of the world, with a consistent set of institutions and policies as well as geographical and material conditions that set the frame for people’s lives, and to identify the complex dynamics by which sociogenetic, microgenetic and ontogenetic transformation co-occur. This chapter presents how we approached, conceived and analysed this case study. To start with, I define my approach to ageing as a form of personal engagement, which progressively developed into a collaborative project. After showing the relevance of a regional case study for sociocultural psychology of the lifecourse, I present the fieldwork, the data collection, an overview of the participants and the main line of the analysis.