Place attachment and place identity amongst older Italians in Newcastle Upon Tyne

Abstract

In the social gerontology literature, there is a wide agreement on the importance of affective bonds with places for a positive experience of ‘ageing-in-place’. This includes a sense of attachment to and identification with places, also defined as a ‘sense of home’. However, the ways in which these affective bonds with places are negotiated by ageing migrants is yet a fairly neglected area of research. Nevertheless, with increasing numbers of older migrants adopting a transnational lifestyle or returning to the country of origin after retirement, there is a pertinent need to explore ageing migrants’ meanings of the affective bonds with places. Through an ethnographic approach, this project aims to gain a better understanding of the sense of attachment to and identification with places by members of an older Italian migrant population in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. The main argument of this work is that a ‘sense of home’ – or a lack of it –shapes the conditions for ageing-in-place in the context of migration. Firstly, I explore how the negotiation of belonging, which relates to social and political aspects of the environment, contributes to a ‘sense of home’ in the context of migration. Secondly, I illustrate how the attachment to places left pre-migration, through transnationality and ‘home-making’ practices, elucidates the expectation of ageing. Thirdly, I address how the facilitators to a ‘sense of home’ in the context of migration mark a new status in later life. Finally, I focus on the barriers to a sense of identification with the places inhabited, that co-exist with a sense of attachment, but that undermine the sense of belonging to these. Ultimately, challenging the assumption of older Italian migrants as a homogeneous population, this work highlights how the diversity within the group is shaped by the relationship established with places in later life.