Benches as Materialisations of (Active) Ageing in Public Space: First Steps towards a Praxeology of Space

Thibauld Moulaert,Anna Wanka

doi:10.17645/up.v4i2.2012

Abstract

In its promotion of “active ageing” through Age-Friendly Cities and Communities (AFCC) and the Global Network on AgeFriendly Cities and Communities (GNAFCC), the World Health Organization has developed a vision of ageing that links socio-spatial environments to personal lifestyles and community support. Approaching age-friendly environments from a “doing” perspective shifts our focus from such ideals to social practices, materialisations, and representations produced. Regularly referred to in AFCC discourse, public benches offer a great illustration for such materialisations. This article asks: what do benches tell us about the way ageing is framed and shaped in the AFCC discourse? How do benches themselves exhibit agency in it? Theoretically based on Lefebvrian social theory and critical gerontology, our reflexive article explores promotional/policy documents supporting AFCC worldwide, “good practices” shared by GNAFCC, and a series of European field observations around AFCC and benches and, finally, personal observations of ageing in public space around benches. Drawing on the Lefebvrian differentiation between representational benches, representations of benches, and social practices of benches, we show how benches can be considered as a socio-technical “assemblage” able to: 1) forge ambivalent representations and solutions for “active ageing” in public space, 2) illustrate, beyond the symbolic of space, the symbolic difficulties of “real” participative and multi-stakeholders governance promoted through “age-friendliness”, and 3) explore everyday life practices of “spatial expulsion” of “ageing in public space” for older adults. In conclusion, we suggest a major shift for the AFCC program by finding inspiration in African practices of “ageing in public space”.

Highlights

Urbanisation and demographic change constitute two of the major developments of the 21st century
Appears that “public benches” could be considered as a good socio-material disposal, a great “assemblage of human and non-human”, assemblage being referred to by Deleuze and Guattari and to the ActorNetwork Theory (ANT) as “a mode of ordering heterogeneous entities so that they work together for a certain time”. (Müller, 2015, p.28) To unfold such “assemblage”, we propose a theoretical model of “ageing in public space” inspired by the three dimensions model of
Applying the three dimensions of space together, we show how the assemblage of public benches in AFCC: 1) it forges ambivalent representations and solutions for “active ageing” in public space, 2) it illustrates, beyond the symbolic of space, the symbolic difficulties of “real” participative and multi-stakeholders governance promoted through “age-friendliness” and, 3) explores everyday life practices of “spatial expulsion” of “ageing in public space” for older adults. 4.1

Summary

Introduction

Urbanisation and demographic change constitute two of the major developments of the 21st century. In 2014, 74% of Europe’s population lived in urban areas (United Nations, Population Division, 2018), and by 2030, at least a quarter of that percentage will be aged 60 and over (Handler, 2014). In 2005, the WHO initiated the “Global Age-Friendly Cities” project involving 33 cities, producing a “Global Age-Friendly Cities” guide (WHO, 2007a) that has been used as a flexible, yet influential, checklist for policy-makers (Plouffe, Kalache, & Voelcker, 2016), which contrasts with the critical interpretation of a “static” vision of age-friendliness (Keating, Eales, & Phillips, 2013). While such checklists have been critically presented as an illustration of a “model of the ‘ideal’ city achieved through appropriate policy and service interventions” (Buffel et al, 2012, p. 598), Buffel and her colleagues call for “a focus on the material conditions of city life [as] a better starting point for understanding pressures on the lives of older people” (Buffel et al, 2012, p. 598)

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