Abstract
The ageing in place agenda emphasises the importance of supporting older adults to age in their communities surrounded by the personal resources to age well. In exploring the relationship between older people and their environment, the concept of place insideness is seen as central to constructing feelings of identity, belonging and attachment in old age. Yet there has been little research exploring how older adults experience place insideness across different urban, social and cultural contexts which is an impediment to identifying effective interventions for age-friendly cities and communities. This article explores how place insideness is experienced amongst older adults across India, Brazil and the United Kingdom. The article presents qualitative findings from 294 semi-structured interviews collected across 9 cities and 27 neighbourhoods. The findings reveal that older adults cultivate their sense of place insideness in old age through dimensions of physical insideness (i.e., environmental competence in navigating and engaging in the community), social insideness (i.e., knowing others) and autobiographical insideness (i.e., shared place histories). In drawing on older people’s understanding of their communities, this article explores the opportunities and challenges in developing a sense of place insideness to support ageing well. We identify implications for policy and practice in terms of how we can better design urban environments as age-friendly communities which support a greater sense of place for older people.
Highlights
Increased ageing and urbanisation have brought about challenges and opportunities in terms of designing urban environments that support and promote healthy and active ageing (Buffel et al, 2019)
Urban transformations have had significant impact on older people as cities have undergone rapid socioeconomic change which has often undermined older people’s attachment to their immediate community. This suggests that closer attention needs to be given to how urban environments can integrate a strong sense of place for older people, defined as the social, psychological and emotional bonds that people have with their environment and which are crucial to ageing in place (Makita et al, 2020)
Many older adults were bound to home and communities by shared memories, meanings and experiences within the context of place. This was often reflected through a sense of place solidarity, civic participation and coming together in the evolvement of the community: In 1962, we were the first residents of this building, my father was the first one to enter that building, and came the entrance where we are, the two of us came from the third floor and my neighbour is door and we have almost like a fraternity, we were raised here so the neighbours all know us since we were little, that’s a lot of family... this neighbour of mine door has been my neighbour for 54 years. (Female, 65, Brasilia (HI), Brazil)
Summary
Increased ageing and urbanisation have brought about challenges and opportunities in terms of designing urban environments that support and promote healthy and active ageing (Buffel et al, 2019). More recent attention has been given to the experiential dimension of place and the way in which older adults engage and negotiate their everyday lives within the context of meaningful places This has made specific the role of ‘relationality’ in understanding place in old age, Peace’s (2007) research, where place is seen as an outcome of the social, psychological and emotional interactions between person and place. In response to external threats (e.g., being forced to move home), older adults can and do initiate place-protective responses to preserve their sense of place (e.g., adapting to their environment in the event of changes to physical health and mobility and feelings of insecurity) (Fang et al, 2018) These responses (and resultant place outcomes) are influenced by the availability of place-based social interactions, environmental disruption, citizen participation and community response (Mihaylov & Perkins, 2014). Older adults are not ‘passive’ recipients to change but demonstrate agency (individual and collective) in response to external threats
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