Invecchiare fuori dalla coppia: abitare futuri im/possibili

Abstract

The article reports the results of a participatory research conducted with women facing mature and elderly age while living outside of a couple (aged 55-80 years), aiming to highlight the specificity of their experiences, needs, and imaginaries, also in relation to their cohort characteristics. Building on the contributions of queer perspectives on caregiving relationships, intimacy, support, and the development of new perspectives on representations and experiences of aging, the relationship between past and present practices of sharing and the place assigned to them in aging, particularly in the perspective of a possible loss of autonomy, is investigated. In future visions, when neither the family solution is accessible nor desired, there remains an empty space between feared futures, especially institutionalization, and desired ones, where shared living, socialization, mutual care, and support are imagined. In these utopian visions, an excess is outlined compared to known co-housing solutions, indicating possibilities for the construction of broader imaginaries of aging in relation.