Paper short abstract:

A mapping of the behaviours elderly urban Romanians exhibit towards the resources in and around their homes, which could be seen as sustainable through the lens of environmentalist practice, with the potential to contribute towards a more ecologically and socially durable society.

Paper long abstract:

The research mapped the behaviours of the urban elderly in Romania towards resources and consumption that could be categorized as positive through the lens of the current environmentalist discourse. The processes of reuse, repair, and reduction of resources taking place in the apartments of the elderly are often treated with irony and associated with an experience of past precarity that should not be re-lived. Instead, the research aimed to understand three things: first, to map out which such behaviours could have a sustainable side-effect, starting with every room of their living quarters, and extending into the common spaces of their building units, and their neighbourhoods at large. Second, we sought to understand how these practices of improvisation and waste-avoidance came to be. Explanations partly relate to the past, such as the infrastructure of reuse and communal caretaking of public space prevalent in the communist period, or childhoods in rural areas which taught seasonality and the transformation of resources to extend their lifeline. Others relate to their present condition, of being pensioners in Romanian cities: old age signifies a deeper fall into financial precarity, forcing one to make their resources last; in parallel, reduced access to the city and public life greatly constrains their activities to the material environment of their apartments and green spaces that are not commodified. Thirdly, we explored the state of intergenerational relations today, and why potential allies in the fight against climate change are being excluded from current conversations and actions.