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.
Este estudo tem como objetivo apresentar um panorama da produção acadêmica nacional sobre a relação entre idosos e senso de lugar. Para isso, foram utilizadas as seguintes fontes de busca: o Portal de Periódicos e o Banco de Teses e Dissertações da CAPES. As palavras-chave empregadas foram: envelhecimento; idosos; cidades amigas do envelhecimento; senso de lugar; e desenho urbano. No total, 68 bibliografias foram examinadas (42 artigos, 14 teses e 12 dissertações). Com o propósito de guiar a coleta de estudos foi produzida uma planilha, contemplando os seguintes aspectos: palavras-chave, áreas de conhecimento, métodos, barreiras e facilitadores de ambientes amigáveis ao envelhecimento. Os resultados destacaram algumas barreiras e facilitadores de tais ambientes. Entre os facilitadores, destacam-se o desenho universal e a acessibilidade. Em termos de barreiras, ressaltam-se as barreiras arquitetônicas, sujeira e insegurança em locais públicos, preconceito, insuficiência familiar e dependência, os quais afetam negativamente o envelhecimento no lugar. Palavras-chave: idosos, senso de lugar, produção acadêmica nacional.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.