The Spatial Practices of the Elderly in Rural Settings

Abstract

As social analysts, we have always based ourselves on spatially arranged scenarios, such as the village, the location, site, community, locality or cultural area. This has enabled us to focus on various different socio-cultural processes, such as identities, migration, diversity of lifestyles, and even the phenomena of globalization. But there are few studies with empirical evidence that approach the analysis of actual living spaces and their socio-spatial practices of the elderly as a sector, and in relation to specific living conditions; the way in which these are accepted in the rural situation; the way they describe and interpret it, and attribute it memory, meaning and sense. That is why I consider it appropriate to propose an analysis of their living environment: their homes and plots of land; the community and the region as key variables, following the proposal for analysis by Lee Cuba and Hummon (1993), who show how the sense of belonging to a place, a home, a community and the region develops. Its analysis enriches the symbolic and affective significance, as well as guiding and motivating; action and reaction; the rootedness and rootlessness that inhabiting a specific place, which those of us who work with the elderly would like to access, since it is there where the consciousness and the crossing point with all the spheres of reality occurs, and where public policy programmes must have an impact, if they are to have a real effect on the life of the elderly population.