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Environment and Identity in Later Life: a cross-setting study

Dr Sheila Peace
Dr Caroline Holland
Leonie Kellaher (London Metropolitan University)

Dates: 1st October 1999 - 31st March 2003
Funded by: Economic and Social Research Council 'Growing Older' Programme (preliminary 'Findings' available)

Although with increasing old age an increasing proportion of older people live in age segregated settings, for most older people domestic homes in mixed communities continue to be the location of everyday life. The person/environment relationship is a complex one that involves the formation, maintenance and expression of self-identity. As people age and experience losses in other domains of life, their relationships with the places where they live can change and become more critical. This study looked at homes, neighbourhoods, and the spaces in between. It included a range of housing from residential care homes and sheltered housing to different types and tenures of flats and houses in different sizes of settlements.

The research had three principal phases:

1. focus groups with older people in Bedford, Haringey and Northamptonshire, to establish areas for further investigation;
2. comprehensive interviews with 54 older men and women in the same three areas. The interview schedules included a purpose-designed interview tool, the 'wheel of life' to allow interactivity;
3. 5 of the respondents also described their relationships with the places they lived in a video, 'At Home: Place Identity and Later Life'.
   

The study suggests a 'Theory of Re-engagement', with a 'Life of Quality' being achieved when older people can adopt specific strategies that allow attachment on their own terms to the social and material fabric of everyday life. People in the study used material, social and cognitive mediators to optimise the mix of 'self' and 'other' in their environments, and by a process of 'Option Recognition' they looked for ways to reinforce or recreate points of attachment to place.

The significance of favourite spaces was enhanced by individuals' ability to be able to move away from them as part of their daily routine in order to return 'energised' by change. This 'journey' could be into or beyond the neighbourhood or just to other rooms in the home; and it had physical and psychological benefits related to the sense of self and mastery of environment, which could be compromised in more institutional settings.

Peace, Sheila and Holland, Caroline and Kellaher, Leonie (2005), Environment and identity in later life. Growing Older. Open University Press, Maidenhead, UK. ISBN 0-335-21512-2 & 978-0-335-21512-6

Peace, Sheila and Holland, Caroline and Kellaher, Leonie (2005), The influence of neighbourhood and community on well-being and identity in later life: an English perspective. In: Home and identity in later life: International perspectives. Springer Publishing Company, New York, USA, pp297-315. ISBN 0-8261-2715-0 & 978-0-8261-2715-0

Holland, C. and Kellaher, L. and Peace, S.M. and Scharf, T. and Breeze, E. and Gow, J. and Gilhooly, M. (2005), Getting out and about. In: Understanding quality of life in old age. Open University Press, Maidenhead, UK, pp49-63. ISBN 0-335-21523-8 & 978-0-335-21523-2

Peace, Sheila and Holland, Caroline and Kellaher, Leonie (2005), Making space for identity. In: Ageing and place: perspectives, policy, practice. Routledge Studies in Human Geography, 9. Routledge, Oxford, UK, pp188-204. ISBN 0-415-32044-5 & 978-0-415-32044-3