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Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on at home as a space of care and its impact on ways of ageing in the precarious social policies context in Spain. We understand the home as an idealised and changing space that (un)fits according to the specific material and spatial conditions and demands of care in ageing.

Paper long abstract:

This paper aims at the home as a care space for older persons and its impact on ageing. In Spain, long-term care for older persons occurs mainly at home due to precarious social policies. The welfare system is noticeably family and home-based. In addition to the complex “mosaic of care resources” (Soronellas et al. 2021), coming from various social actors such as the family, the market, the State and the community, the configuration of the home itself is added; understood in this communication from a symbolic, material, and architectural perspective. In this sense, the home is constructed as a safe space for care. A space idealised by its carers and the older people who live in it. It is a changing environment in its functions, meanings, and structure determined by the (un)fit the material conditions of the house (defined by class and origin), the demands of care in ageing (fragilities and vulnerabilities) and its socio-spatial configuration (urban/rural, flats/houses). Based on ethnographic research conducted in Spain, we will analyse three cases of ageing at home that recreate it like a heterogeneous cultural experience within a context of weak care policies. We try to answer questions about: what does it mean to age at home?; how does the home condition ageing (according to class and origin)?; how is the home constructed as a space of care and on which emic variables does it depend?; and what are the limits and potentialities of care at home in long-term care for older people?

Reference

Soronellas, Montserrat, Carlos Chirinos, Natalia Alonso and Dolors Comas-d’Argemir. 2021. “Hombres, cuidados y ancianidad: un bricolaje de ayudas, un mosaico de recursos de cuidados (Cataluña, España)”. In Ganarse la vida. La reproducción social en el mundo contemporáneo, edited A. Castro, R.H. Contreras and J. Conteras, 209-235. Ciudad de México: UNAM.

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Paper short abstract:

In Romania 96% of the population lives in a household owning their home, while non-officially 4 million Romanians are working abroad. A large percentage of them are guest workers, emigrants, who have flats, houses in Romania, but live in other countries, in rented homes. Where is their real home?

Paper long abstract:

At present around 70% of the population in the EU lives in a household owning their home, while the remaining 30% lives in rented housing. The highest shares of ownership were observed in Romania, where 96%. On the other hand, the non-official statistics say that more than 4 million Romanians are working, living abroad and around 100 000 children left home alone in Romania are waiting their return. Most of these guest workers, temporary emigrants want to return to their country. They earn money, they send it home to their relatives and they build a house in Romania. Usually they live abroad - in Spain, Italy, Germany - decades, they rent a flat or a house, they have a home, but actually they are waiting for the moment when they have enough money to return to their hometown, village, where is their real home. Parallel lives, parallel spaces, parallel homes. While in Western Europe these emigrant people, guest workers usually live in modern flats in the suburbs of cities, their dream is a traditional family house in hidden village - not rarely without electricity, piped water etc. They want to change their destiny, they go to "Europe" to gain money, but they don't use it to change, they use it to maintain the traditional life, lifestyle. Their house (or flat) in Romania is the fix point, is the basis. They live between two worlds.

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Paper short abstract:

The everydayness of people living in Bratislava’s suburbs has particular challenges. Some have been emphasized during the COVID-19 pandemic, shedding new light on the uncertainties of suburban living. What are the life trajectories of its inhabitants, and how do they relate to the myth of suburbia?

Paper long abstract:

The global myth of life in suburbia is characterized by ideas of privatization, social conformity, environmental unsustainability, and melancholy (McDonogh, 2006). The migration of people from the middle and upper classes to low-density residential areas is a relatively new phenomenon in Slovakia (Šuška & Šveda, 2019). The local “suburban myth” was constructed in the “neoliberal spirit” of the postsocialist 1990s and 2000s. It creates a diversified melange of notions about overcoming the risks of the precarious housing market, becoming a private homeowner, and making an “American” like home (G. Lutherová, 2013). These ideals have been problematized by the dystopic images of the uniform blocks of houses surrounded by fields, with no sidewalks or street lamps. How does the social practice relate to the postsocialist myth of suburbia, and what are the perspectives of suburban life in Slovakia?

The paper originates from ethnographic research (in-depth interviews, participant observation, visual ethnography) in the capital Bratislava and its suburbs (also outside the state borders in the neighbouring Austrian and Hungarian countrysides). Informants described various challenges of their everyday life: from spending hours in traffic to social isolation. Some of these struggles resulted from specific urbanistic and architectural characteristics (Šveda, 2019) and are also connected to the process of placemaking. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many informants realized that they might be particularly vulnerable to societal challenges and transformations. This way, an ideal for some becomes a burden for others as their life trajectories shift when they navigate the uncertainties of living in suburbia.

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Based on empirical research on the system of social housing and on the experiences and strategies of housing seekers, this paper traces how the system of public housing in Vienna partly responds to, but often also fails to meet the needs of changing dwelling practices and domestic arrangements.

Paper long abstract:

Vienna is known for its long tradition of social housing, dating back to the era of “Red Vienna” in the 1920s. Although the city’s own building activity decreased over the years, more than 20% of Vienna’s housing units are still owned and administered by the municipality. This paper looks at the ways in which this large part of Vienna’s housing stock responds (or does not respond) to various models of co-habitation and changing dwelling practices. Empirically, the contribution is based on an analysis of the legal regulations of access to and the formalities of the allocation process of municipal housing, on qualitative interviews with representatives of Vienna’s municipal housing agency and on qualitative interviews with housing seekers conducted within the interdisciplinary research project SPACE (Spatial Competition and Economic Policies) at the university of Vienna. In a first step, the norms inscribed in the material structures of the municipal housing stock as well as in the access and allocation regulations are elaborated and examined for their changes over the last years in relation with social developments. In a second step, we will present case studies of housing seekers looking for a municipal apartment who were confronted with various difficulties in finding opportunities for their desired or needed uses of domestic space within this system of municipal housing.

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Paper short abstract:

The case study of the Latgales suburb of Rīga is an example of social coexistence and dealing with the controversial cultural experiences in multifaceted religious suburb's landscape. Social, religious, and linguistic diversity stimulate the dynamic attitude towards “hosts” and “housing seekers”.

Paper long abstract:

The concept of home is helpful to understand a social dimension of the religious everyday practices. The case study of the Latgales suburb of Rīga (historical “Moskauer Vorstadt”) demonstrates interaction between the different religious communities (Russian Orthodox, Old Believers, Catholics, Lutherans, adepts of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Judaists) that have common historical roots and traumas. The multifaceted religious landscape of this suburb includes not only sacred building, but also shared housing areas, still determinated the specific of social milieu here.

On the one hand, the Moskauer Vorstadt preserved the historical buildings (wooden architecture, rather modest Art nouveau, Soviet and contemporary architecture) and street layout, on the other hand, the social, ethnic, and religious composition of inhabitants is changed during the last 50 years. Nevertheless the “historical” locals were capable to maintain the especial genius loci, as well as to engage the “newcomers” in the everyday practices.

The Moskauer Vorstadt has a problematical reputation: as for the tourists a highly exciting exploring place, and as a criminally unsure place. We can observe the excellent examples of social coexistence and dealing with the controversial sociocultural experiences. Based on the different narratives (published memories, as well as oral life stories) and observations during the last decade, some social practices could be pointed out, regarding the shared living space in the suburb. Social, religious, and linguistic diversity in this case stimulate more dynamic (sometimes also more emphatic) attitude towards the “hosts” and “housing seekers”.

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Paper short abstract:

Housing access for young people is one of the various uncertainties and difficulties that characterise the contemporary world and many European cities. Inspired by the case of Lisbon, the potential gap between housing aspirations and expectations and ways of living will be explored.

Paper long abstract:

Difficulty in accessing housing is one of the main problems faced by young people in their life transitions, causing subsequent instability, either due to the housing market constraints (unaffordable prices both in home ownership and renting) or to the constraints of precarious jobs and low incomes. In Lisbon, it is particularly difficult leaving the parental home, not only because of the escalating housing prices but also due to the consequences of this reality on young people's autonomy, life transitions and family expectations.

The growing instability in young people's housing pathways and the diversification of new residential solutions and preferences they have adopted require a critical glance at the new housing solutions. In an unaffordable city like Lisbon, it is important to understand the several strategies adopted by young people to circumvent housing access and correlated problems and gain more independence in this transitional phase.

New urban and residential practices and values held by younger people (e.g. co-housing, home sharing, peripheral relocations) may be observed, as well as various impacts on their lifestyles, modes of residential appropriation and domestic experiences. The architectural constraints caused by dwellings being inadequate for the new ways of living are also worthy of analysis.

Based on in-depth interviews, the goal of this communication is to illustrate the daily domestic life of several young people sharing a house in Lisbon, having as a focus the potential gap between aspirations and expectations concerning housing and ways of living.

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Paper short abstract:

Analyzes the challenges and solutions regarding living spaces and their uses during the COVID19 lookdown. Based on the photographic and textual self-documentation from students from the UAM Cuajimalpa, a public university catering to low-income residents mainly living on the outskirts of the city.

Paper long abstract:

The aim of this work is to shed light on the actual challenges and solutions found by regular people regarding their living spaces and their uses during the COVID19 lookdown. This knowledge has the potential to inform the responses by architects and other built environment specialists looking for housing solutions.

The self-documentation of intimate spaces brings us closer to home life, a realm that is otherwise difficult to access. The city is usually narrated from its streets, parks, shops, or transport, but rarely from the experience lived in the intimacy of the house. This paper is based on the photographic and textual documentation gathered by seventy students from the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana campus Cuajimalpa in Mexico City. The UAM-C is a public institution catering to low-income residents mainly living on the outskirts of the city. The students recorded their living spaces and the transformation happening to their domestic lives between February 2020 and May 2022, in the first phase of the COVID19 pandemic. During that period, the city was lived from within: interior spaces and their uses changed and acquired new, unexpected meanings. Dining rooms became offices; kitchens, potted gardens; entrances, sanitizing stations; and bedrooms, classrooms, or gyms. The research takes advantage of a selection of representative stories and testimonies to create a series of vignettes that illustrate how students and their families adapted spaces and their ways of life during confinement.

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Paper short abstract:

The home, above all, is the place of the predictable. In a scenario of growing uncertainty generated by multiple factors, this research proposes to explore those essential spaces of certainties that are maintained and produced from domestic space.

Paper long abstract:

The home, above all, is the place of the predictable or the known; an environment where it is possible to foresee the sensory experience with an accuracy that cannot be achieved in other spaces. This condition allows our senses to rest and the brain, as it does with a phantom limb, to reproduce from predictive models that which it knows. Even our identity, ultimately, rests largely on the certainty that the place where we fall asleep will be the same place where we wake up, be it a house, a tent, a truck cab or a cell. We know the sound of the doors, we know the rhythms of the people we live with, the smells of each room and the temperature of the floor. Our senses are only alerted when the stimuli we receive does not match what we expect.

In a scenario of growing uncertainty generated by the environmental crisis, technological development, health emergencies, economic difficulties and war, this research proposes to explore those spaces of certainties offered by the domestic space. It is especially interesting to recognize how the social and material changes associated with these crisis scenarios affect what is predictable and eventually entail the construction of new forms of certainty. Two apparently opposing forces are recognized: an analogous one that rests on the materiality of the home and its anchoring in a specific and concrete territory; and a digital one that opens up to the possibilities of artificial intelligence, virtuality and augmented reality.