Body capital and the geography of aging

Abstract

The 2010 US Census recorded 40.3 million residents aged 65 years and older mostly living in urban environments that were not originally designed for older adults. This potential social and spatial mismatch is made worse by the unavoidable decline of physical adaptability that could come in older age. Ultimately, within residential settings that have remained mostly unaltered for decades, diminished physical and cognitive capacity can force older adults to face undesired and, most importantly, unplanned transformations of their established routines in everyday life. The article expands on Pierre Bourdieu's concept of habitus and body capital to advance the need for research on the interaction between bodies and places. By highlighting theoretical arguments that express dissonance between aging populations and built environments, the paper further explores the concept of habitus. Of importance is how diminished body capital not only changes habitus, but also changes how other people see older people, contributing towards ageism. The conclusion addresses how the European ENABLE‐AGE project and the World Health Organization Age‐Friendly cities are developing processes to mitigate this change.

The geographies of UK university halls of residence: examining students' embodiment of social capital

“…The three examples used here highlight how drawing upon previous social and/or cultural experiences may provide enough capital with which to legitimise their position within their halls environment. Importantly, these empirical findings extend recent applications of social capital which have demonstrated its value in relation to the social positioning of [dis]ability (Holt 2010;Worth 2012) and ageing (Antoninetti and Garrett 2012) and how identities are perceived both by self and by other. This paper has revealed how examining young people's behaviours through the lens of social capital may be advantageous to future research on the geographies of children and HE as it broadens our understanding of how young people maintain (or fail to maintain) positions within their social groups.…”

“The Heart Desires but the Body Refuses”: Sexual Scripts, Older Men’s Perceptions of Sexuality, and Implications for Their Mental and Sexual Health

“…Our findings suggest that the devaluation of men’s masculinity in later life is largely a result of their inability to endorse normative masculine sexuality scripts (due to bodily limitations) and that there are thus discrepancies between an individual’s sexual experiences in later life and the cultural scripts of masculine sexuality. These discrepancies affect older men’s processes of self-identification (such as the feeling of being an incomplete or a lesser man) to the point of generating anxiety, as well as to interfering with their process of self-identification (Antoninetti and Garrett 2012 ).…”

Narratives of (in)active ageing in poor deprived areas of Liverpool, UK

“…Dissonance between traditional urban environments and the needs of vulnerable people, including elders (Antonietti and Garrett, 2012) have stimulated proposals for "age-friendly" urban environments (Phillipson, 2004b;WHO, 2007;Cinderby, 2010;ILC, 2011). Demographic change prompts re-examination of age and geography (Walker, 2010); population profiles, worker/dependent ratios (WHO, 2002;Kihara, 2009;ONS, 2012); and intergenerational relationships (Europa, 2009).…”