The point of departure for this volume is the history of Swedish modernisation. This modernisation follows the Swedish industrial golden age (1930–1975), which rested on strong features of socialization into employment, interest expressions organized in political parties and trade unions, the consumption of public services and leisure activities clearly separated from work. It was a homogeneous society with strong equality ideals and commitment to the formal democratic decision-making processes. Above all, the smaller industrial towns gained most from the welfare-building process.
The ‘horizon of expectation’ (Koselleck 1992 [1979]) created by the industrial society during these decades was not compatible with the social and political landscape that took shape and direction after the industrial crises of the mid-1970s. The developments were increasingly characterized by labour-market flexibility, deregulation, consumer lifestyle, individualization and privatization of public welfare services. At the time, Henri Lefebvre (1979: 290) noted an ‘explosion of spaces’, in which industrial geography, patterns of urbanization, every-day life and the regulating power of the nation state were instable and distorted. This tendency has increased through globalization, neo-liberalism and the urbanized labour market.
Generally, the traditional social democratic welfare model that made Sweden world-famous during the post-war period has been dismantled and deprived of many of its economic and political instruments. The initial distributive allocation model has been transformed into a market-oriented hierarchy of activities, regions and cities. The global economy has undergone similar changes. Since the late 1970s, national, regional and local policies no longer aim at redistribution of resources in order to counteract uneven geographical developments. Rather, the policies result in the emergence of areas as winners or losers in sub-national competition for resource-allocation (Andersson et al. 2008). In most cases, this development favours knowledge-intensive and financially governing urban regions, with international connectivity.
In detail however, this transformation has proceeded in different ways depending on historical, geographical and institutional circumstances. This anthology is written in light of these structural changes in economy, politics and society. The localities and identities that the Swedish welfare model created were strongly related to a distributive national system of cities and production locations. But metropolitan areas and university cities have in recent decades taken on a decisive leading position in economic and demographic development. An ever-widening gap has emerged between small towns and rural areas on the one hand and major cities on the other hand. In recent decades, reasons for population growth in large Swedish cities are less connected to domestic rural-urban migration, but more to high urban nativity and international migration. Countless small towns in the countryside experience an alarmingly aging population and schools with a decreasing number of school-children. This is a result of a redistribution principle and choice of investment locations that stand in stark contrast to the economic and political landscape which once formed the basis for the Swedish welfare society.
Against this background, the aim of this anthology is to present research on place distinctiveness, identity formation and social change in Sweden, aided by international theories and concepts. At the time of writing, the authors were PhD candidates and senior researchers at the research school Urban Studies (FUS) within the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies (CURES) at Örebro University, Sweden. The studies collected in this volume relate to various interpretations of the concepts of place and identity.
Therefore, this introduction now turns to a short discussion of these concepts. Before a more critical stance is offered towards the end of this chapter, the concepts are first approached broadly here. In lay discourse, the word ‘place’ is used in many ways in different contexts. Someone or something can be put ‘in place’ or become ‘out of place’. The word can also be used as a verb, when scholars are ‘placing a phenomenon in time and space’. Similarly, identity can be formed by age, gender, ethnicity, religion and so forth. As such, identity is used in many ways to describe senses of belonging to or alienation from groups or places.
As an academic concept, ‘place’ has been discussed by sociologists (e.g. Urry 2007), human geographers (Massey 1991, Relph 1976, 1996, Tuan 1977, 2005) and other social scientists. As Massey (1995) argues, places are unique in that they are different, while simultaneously having aspects in common in an interrelated world. According to Castree (2006: 170), place can have different, often overlapping meanings. These are place as location (distinct points on the earth’s surface), sense of place (‘how different individuals and groups […] both interpret and develop meaningful attachments to those specific areas where they live out their lives’) and place as locale (the scale at which people’s daily life is typically lived). It is neither possible nor desirable to reach consensus on what constitutes place, which is why it is so exciting to study social phenomena in relation to ‘place’!
Place has been characterised both as fixed and as fluid. As such, the concept has been associated with settlement and stasis as well as with mobilities and dynamics of everyday life. Urry (2007: 269) suggests that ‘places are economically, politically and culturally produced through the multiple mobilities of people, […] capital, objects and information’. As the chapters and various empirical materials in this volume witness, place is never completed (Thrift 1999: 317).
Yet, in relation to the concept of identity, place can be studied from a particular angle. The concepts of identity and place can be combined so as to ascribe identity to a certain locale (place identity) or for human beings to derive their identity partly from a place with which they identify (Gren & Hallin 2003: 143–145). As such, place identity can be derived from historical human activities in or around that place. It can also be created by contrasting places with each other or focusing on similarities between places. Moreover, through music, people may relate their identity to places by expressing emotions of joy, sadness, hatred or rebellion felt in connection to those places.
This volume discusses on-going multi-disciplinary explorations of geographical and cultural change within the social sciences on the one side, and recently intensified transformations of Swedish society on the other. The chapters represent various reflections on these transformations and how they are connected to people’s relationship to particular places. They contribute to an adjusted perspective on the history of Swedish modernisation by looking at its different consequences during the post-war period.
The rapidly growing research on the situation of the elderly population has spread widely across demographic analyses. Christina Hjort Aronsson’s contribution examines the conditions for the elderly in depopulated municipalities after the turnaround from a publicly funded nursing care to a cost-effective and competitive market in line with New Public Management. How did this policy transition affect the elderly care especially when it comes to sensitive issues like dignity, belonging and social interaction? Do elderly people today live less or more in congruence with contemporary society than previous generations? Hence, this first chapter focuses on a rural society.
Current issues in contemporary rural society are also highlighted in Marco Eimermann’s study on Dutch migrants in Hällefors, a municipality in rural Sweden. This chapter relates place-identity to the field of lifestyle migration (e.g. Torkington 2012). Eimermann discusses post-migration challenges faced by lifestyle migrants, as an illustrative contrast to e.g. refugees’ post-migration everyday lives that seem challenging for more obvious reasons. In many cases, a mismatch occurs between pre-migration aspirations – partly raised by visiting migrant fairs where Swedish depopulated municipalities attempt to attract new residents from Holland, Belgium and Germany – and post-migration experiences in the rural Swedish destinations. Although the natural beauty, space, low property prices and a general sense of freedom motivates many lifestyle migrants to move, the (lack of) social relationships established after migration determine much of the migrants’ quality of life.
Particular characteristics of the rural landscape are studied in the third chapter. Taking a story that relates contemporary rural Swedish landscape to historical events as its point of departure, the chapter by Fridolfsson connects place and identity to issues of uniqueness in an era of globalisation. The author relates a particular place in the rural Swedish Bergslagen area to nostalgic sentiments referring to the heydays of this area before and during the Swedish industrial golden age (see also Isacson et al. 2009). She investigates these developments within the context of emerging ecotourism in rural Sweden.
After these chapters with a rural focus, the collection turns to a rather urban focus. The chapter by Eva Gustavsson and Ingemar Elander on local climate policy in three Swedish towns corresponds to the ‘selling’ perspective on urban and regional development. As municipalities increasingly compete when attracting jobs, investment and international interest, environmental strategies have become an integral part of the ‘branding’ of the location – but the outcomes differ in terms of success, as Gustavsson & Elander also discuss in the chapter.
Besides the social fabric of a place, physical surroundings are also important. Places can also be designed, built and constructed for different purposes. Both Andreas Thörn’s study of the Pentecostal Church in Stockholm during the earlier twentieth century and the chapter by Charlotte Fridolfsson and Ingemar Elander on contemporary mosques in Swedish cities deal with sites created for specific groups’ needs of both community life of the enclosed group and integration of that group in society. The emphasis on religious community for the identity process of groups and individuals in a secular country like Sweden would appear to be a decisive shift from socialization as formerly connected with work and the profession learned in a work place.
However, Thörn’s contribution shows that there have always been parallel community building processes, and previously unaddressed histories of space and wealth creation, which are again visible today with the establishment of a more pluralistic society. The investigation by Fridolfsson and Elander proves that the process of site-constructing, in this case involving a religious and cultural Muslim community, in reality follows quite different patterns in different cities. The places as well as the importance designated to basement mosques and new built mosques could be linked to different perspectives on minority rights and the need and willingness of the group itself to interact with the surrounding society.
In other cases, places can be inextricably linked to entire subcultures, something that is particularly evident when talking about youth and music culture. Susanna Nordström analyses the heavy metal scene in Gothenburg, Sweden’s second largest city. She demonstrates how place and music create a strong identity link through a youth culture that is spread out across the country. Nordström argues that the heavy metal scene in Gothenburg shows characteristics of a diaspora, in which music becomes a means for people to connect to an imagined place of birth or upbringing.
The spread of values and conducts that originally came from urban conditions can be read in several sectors of society and in medium-sized and small towns as well. Anders Trumberg’s chapter shows how economic and ethnic segregation in the Swedish compulsory school also is a reality in medium-sized towns in Sweden after the major school reforms in the early 1990’s. Previously, segregation between the primary schools has been treated exclusively as a phenomenon in larger metropolitan areas. Trumberg discusses how the individualization of democratic values has altered the social geography not least in places that have accomplished structural transformation from once industrial production towns to become places of knowledge production.
In the penultimate chapter, Monika Persson also addresses an aspect of urbanization and urban life that long has been associated with metropolitan areas: (un)safety and the perceived dangers of the urban environment. Persson discusses how the differentiation of insecurity by gender, age and social class and urban space as a ‘moderator’ of social relations is a predominant reality also in small and medium-sized Swedish towns.
A point of departure for several chapters in the book is the construction of places; the physical and mental design and their social and economic importance. This may involve selling strategies of houses and homes through marketing and storytelling, as analysed in the final chapter by Maja Lilja and Peter Sundström. The market depiction of people and places associated with imagined locations and their values are a prominent feature of private construction companies and investors. Places are defined by what is emphasized and what is deselected. Lilja and Sundström observe how a number of dichotomies occur frequently for various planned residential areas: history and modernity, nature and city life, people and lifestyle. Several residential areas could be interpreted as projects of self-segregation for an urban, active middle class. At the same time Lilja and Sundström reflect upon how conceptions of the home are connected to leisure, rather than to work. Moreover, the marketing of residential sites demonstrates a greater awareness of the importance of leisure time spent at the residential area.
As introduced above, this collection presents studies from different disciplines covering a variety of cases. Each chapter takes as its point of departure an existing or imagined place in connection to Swedish empirical material gathered by the authors. It discusses questions of identity related to people’s everyday practices in or related to that place. How do people relate individually and collectively to various places? Can we observe socio-cultural developments in this type of relationships? Can everyday practices be explained by studying characteristics of place? But also: how can the identity of a place be produced and instrumentalised in political visions and processes, for example concerning sustainability and policy? This volume addresses these and other questions using an array of place- and identity-related theories and concepts.
Places are historical and geographical, but also subjective entities. They may radically change due to economic and political development. People living in once booming towns and regions that recently have turned to face declining population and stagnating economy interpret their lives differently than before. In other circumstances, culture and society give places new meaning and attractiveness. This is related to the different and often overlapping meanings that the concept of place can have (Castree 2006: 170). This collection sheds a light on these meanings from Swedish rural and urban perspectives. Places make a lasting impression in people’s minds and they are thus important components of the (dis) continuities of social life and the formation and values of society.
Due to mobility’s increasing impacts on place, place identities have become more fragmented over the past decades. A major challenge in researching place and identity is to overcome this fragmentation and combine increasingly fluid and remaining static interpretations of place, as they emerge in various new contexts among different groups in Swedish and other societies. Combining the contributions presented here, this volume takes a step towards addressing this challenge.
Örebro and Umeå, Sweden, Summer 2014
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Castree, Noel (2006), ‘Place: connections and boundaries in an interconnected world’. pp. 165–185 in: Holloway, Sarah, Stephen Rice & Gill Valentine (2006) (eds), Key Concepts in Geography. London: Sage.
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Urry, John (2007), Mobilities. Cambridge: Polity Press.
This contribution to the anthology about identity and place has to some extent been influenced by the ongoing Swedish media attention during 2011 to what has been called scandals in elder care, especially residential care. This media debate has focused on the fact that private companies make huge profits by having extremely cost-effective care organizations, and that frail elderly persons suffer from this. The cases of deeply disgraceful treatment of older persons that have surfaced are as far from any idea of human dignity as possible. But what is interesting to reflect upon is the fact that the concept of identity is remarkably absent in most discussions about the content and quality of elder care, and not only these current examples. The focus of elder care has been on solutions to bring health care and social assistance to individuals, not on how the help might contribute to the quality of life to ageing persons in terms of their lifelong identities. Scientific knowledge should contribute to better care content, as well as to how to put personnel and financial resources to use in a better and more dignified way.
In the years around 1900, human ageing was not yet something that was regarded as a social policy issue. The great demographic changes during the twentieth century, however, with rising in average life expectancies all over the Western world due to better hygiene, food and health care and medical treatment, forced society to recognize the need to take action to deal with the ageing population. The Swedish average life expectancy is projected to continue to increase until around 2050, for men from the current 78.6 to 83.6 years, and for women from 82.8 to 86.3 years (SCB, 2006:2). The fact that we live for so long has also meant that we live as retired persons for a fairly long period, sometimes more than thirty years. Also, the transition from an active, working life to living as pensioners is far from an abrupt change from one day to next. Many prefer to retire step by step between the ages of 60 and 67, thus keeping in contact with their occupations to some degree. Also, many preserve their good health to a high age and lead active lives travelling, pursuing interests and hobbies, and taking part in social activities with friends.
The argument that will be focused on in this chapter concerns aspects of the connection between the person, social interaction and place as they have been theorized on psychological, social-psychological and social levels in social science and social gerontology. As is asked by Forssell in the introductory chapter, matters concerning dignity, belonging and social interaction, deeply influence identities of older persons and this is especially important when the amount of freedom in action is restricted by bad health and illness. Over the course of their entire lives, individuals develop a deep identification with an environment, be it rural, a small rural town or an urban environment, with the consequence that they either live there for the rest of their life, have resettled during a later part of life, or arrange a mixture of both, all in order to keep in contact with a geographical location that is familiar to them. The places where one lives and has lived during one’s life reflect aspects of one’s self (Chapman & Peace 2008) and life experiences are connected to certain places which themselves contribute to and influence how identity develops through the life course. Though people may move many times during their lives, all the places where they have lived form a kind of mental map which contributes to their identity and to a sense of belonging as well as of exclusion (Lynch, 1967). The aim of this chapter is to review and discuss some aspects of the concept of identity in terms of how research captures this in connection with human ageing in a social context where social care of older people is of great importance for their daily lives. Places and artefacts as well as relationships, play a vital role in the continuity and change of individual identity. Identity arises in the relationship between one’s own and others’ definitions of who I am, and identity changes over time as well as according to the social context. The chapter will begin with some notions about the home ideology of Swedish elder care, followed by a theory of personality development and then move on to theories explaining ageing from social and sociological levels and the importance issues concerning place when trying to understand ageing and the life course.
An increasing dependence on health and medical care as well as social care such as home help is often a reality in the life of older individuals. Welfare solutions are based on the idea of remaining at home for as long as possible on the grounds that it is good for the individual to remain in a familiar and comfortable setting. This chapter will discuss the importance of place relations for the individual self throughout the entire course of life. The ideological preference within the Swedish welfare sector for having the elderly remain at home is supported by scientific evidence, although it to some degree also is a case of making a virtue of hard realities in a situation characterized by budget constraints. In formulating the continuity theory, Atchley (1999) concluded that there is a constant internal logic in the thinking, acting and preferences of individuals during their life course. It is important for those responsible for the health and social care of older people to recognize this in order to respect the individuality and personalities of those in their care.
The possibility for elderly persons to remain in their own houses or apartments and receive help in the form of home care from the public social service has been an official goal of Swedish social policy since the 1950s (Hjorth Aronsson, 2007). The concept that underpins this policy and practice has been normalization, the idea that old age as well as various kinds of disabilities in different stages of life are best dealt with through individually adopted assistance in a familiar environment. One’s own home is understood to be the place where an individual can feel safe, familiar, and comfortable. Institutions in the form of elder care centres have been and still are regarded as socially excluding and as the final alternative in a late phase of a person’s physical and/or mental deterioration. According to the Social Services Act (SFS 2001:453), an ageing citizen has the right, no matter where he or she lives, to social care and services according to his or her particular needs and conditions. According to law, individual preferences and personal decision-making are the factors that should carry the most weight in deciding how to assist a person. Assistance should, as far as possible, be provided where the person lives. The kind and amount of the home care to which a person is entitled – for instance buying food, cleaning, preparing meals, personal help with hygiene – are decided by a social worker after individual assessment. A nurse is responsible for deciding what kind of medical care that may be necessary for the individual in question. A division of labour is thus established between medical treatment performed by a nurse and home care tasks carried out by the home care staff. This division of labour is paradigmatic and is based upon the legally defined areas of responsibility of medicine and social work respectively.
The normalization strategies within Swedish elder care have been created and developed through public efforts in the municipalities under the direction by the state. During the last decade the new public management model of welfare organization has evolved, which stipulates that the care user should have a choice between different private or public providers of care. Hence, the possibility to remain in your own home is associated with the possibility to choose between different private care companies (see also SFS 2008:962). This new situation has raised questions concerning the quality of the care of older people and the media attention on scandals mentioned above is a reflection on this situation within the care of elderly. As a consequence of this the Swedish government has decided to investigate whether there exist systematic differences of quality between private and public deliverers of care to older people (Regeringsbeslut/Government Decision/S2011/11253/FST).
Writing from a social psychological and psycho-analytical perspective, Erik H. Erikson argued that the human self develops through an ongoing interaction between individual and society throughout the entire life course (1982/2004:135). According to Erikson’s theoretical work, there are eight successive and distinct developmental stages, with the ageing period (late adulthood) comprising the last parts of life. He pointed our civilization’s lack of a culturally sustainable ideal for human ageing, which means that we have no conceptual notion of human life as a whole (ibid. p. 135). Instead of being included in society, older persons are often excluded and neglected. Instead of wisdom, defined as ‘an objective, and yet active interest in life until death’ (ibid. p. 76, my translation), the ageing period is a personification of shame. After Erik H Erikson’s death, his wife Joan complemented his developmental theory with a ninth stage comprising the very last part of life, a period characterized by frailty, dependence, and an increasing need for care and medical treatment before death. The end-of-life-period is presumed to be the time when a person concludes his or her life. A good place to live is thus an important part of this period. In this period of life reflections of the personality are mostly expressed through artefacts – memories of lived experiences – such as photos, literature, books, music, art, furniture. An interpretation of this phase in Joan Erikson’s augmentation of the general theory is that this development forms a general human development, no matter where an individual has spent the main parts of his or her life. During this end-of-life period, physical and spatial connectedness to a well-known but restricted physical and social context is of great importance. Joan Erikson points out the need for these kinds of well-known artefacts in the familiar environment of older persons (ibid. pp. 136–143). The importance of this well-known physical environment at the very end of life is shown in a study by Whitaker (2004). Whitaker studied very old, dying women living in care homes and narrow bounded to their beds and a few personal things that they could regard as their own.
Though the focus is on individual development Erikson’s theorizing about the identity formation during the entire life of an individual definitively involves a social interactional perspective. The developmental stages that an individual follows are influenced by experiences on interactional levels. Later, researchers have drawn attention to the importance of regarding the self as composed of narratives, by means of which we express elements of ourselves internally and present the self externally, and argue that this is a process that goes on in dialogue with someone else or in a text, a script (Rubinstein & de Medeiros, 2005: 52).
The life-course perspective within social gerontology, which takes as its starting point the ongoing and dynamic relationship between the individual and the social context, the circumstances and changes occurring at structural levels, has theorized about how older persons within the population live in congruence with the era in which they live. The life-course perspective should be understood as saying that in the modern way of ageing, different life styles and ways of living are challenging ideas of how life and ageing are or should be, namely a series of stages in a life cycle. Daly and Grant (2008) make the following definition of a life course perspective that it
places an emphasis on understanding the physical, spatial, social and temporal contexts in which people live, as well as the ways in which individuals and their environments shape each other (2008:12).
Daly and Grant (2008), as well as Rubinstein and de Medeiros (2005) take an important step away from regarding human life as a series of developmental stages in Erikson’s sense. Instead they emphasize the important idea that human life is culturally embedded and socially contingent (Daly & Grant, 2008: 12) and the self is narratively constructed in dialogue with the context (Rubinstein & de Medeiros, 2005). Different lifestyles within the late modern consumer society are also represented among the elderly population, and market forces which are adapted to specific goals of the consumer population also target them. Commercial forces have long recognized the strong market potential that exists among the ageing population (Vincent 2003), whether it be for general consumption, body-fitness products, fashion or goaloriented travelling (Öberg, 2005). Conceptions of the elderly as asexual are less prominent nowadays as studies have shown that they establish new partner relationships when their former partners have died or after a separation. Emotions do not diminish with age, although expressions of them might change in character (Öberg, 2003; Öberg & Tornstam, 2003). The concept of intersectionality is important in understanding aspects of ageing and later life (Cranswick, 2003). Professional works as well as household duties are gendered throughout life, and this will continue regardless of ethnic and socioeconomic belonging. Borell (2003) showed how men and women differed in their efforts to rebuild a new home after divorce or the death of their former partner. Women who had been responsible for caring for their husbands until his death were less inclined to build a new home with a new partner, than were men who had lost their wives. The women studied preferred an intimate relationship that did not involve entering a new role as the one responsible for household duties. The term for this is LAT-relationships (Living Apart Together) and seems to be a trend in countries of the western world. In Sweden there is a special term for this phenomenon of living apart but having a close relationship, namely särbo (ibid. p. 469). This can be seen as an example of a late modern way of living for ageing women who wish to claim a period of autonomy before the final years of frailty and disease that often follow.
Also of interest is a set of phenomena that have been gathered under the concept of ‘elective belonging’, by which refers to those aged persons who consciously select where to live as part of their lifestyle and identity (Phillipson, 2007). Phillipson refers to studies of retired, often affluent people who move to rural areas that are favoured by them such as the English Cotswolds, the Welsh Borders and the Peak District. He also cites to studies of those Swedes who migrate to Spain at higher ages (2007:329). Interestingly in the studies of the migrated Swedes is that there is no ‘agreed form of belonging to their new community’ (ibid. 329), but instead they are visitors in the new country, and not seldom are more connected to other Swedes living there than to local residents. I interpret these examples of settling in self-selected and preferred locations at higher ages as expressions of a wish, for those who can afford it, to spend some years of pursuing their interests, or hobbies in a comfortable climate, or living in a beautiful natural setting.
The importance of the home and home environment for the elderly emphasizes its status as a part of identity; at home you have furniture, goods and other things that represent memories of a lived life at the same time as life still continues inside as well as outside the home, in the neighbourhood and beyond. Even if older persons have to adopt their home environment to facilitate their present way of life, this environment is familiar to them, says something about who they are, and is an expression of their identity. Home-decorating, style and furniture express personal tastes and preferences, confirm identity, and keep memories alive, as well as being able to serve as a bridge between generations. People’s homes are an expression of the person they have been throughout the experiences of life. Daily routines and everyday rituals are connected to the home and contribute to emotions of being at home and feeling safe according to Rubinstein and de Medeiros (2005). As they argue (2005:52–53), the things in a person’s home can become one with the self. Of special importance is the familiar character of the home for persons with incipient or fully developed Alzheimer’s Disease, for whom the very concept of home has a deep symbolic meaning of belonging, recognition and importance (Frank, 2005). In this case the sense of home might be expressed through a piece of music, a well recognized smell, or a familiar piece of furniture. The meaning of home for a person with dementia might be a special case, but generally speaking, homes for ageing people are places in the sense of ‘settings with personal significance’ (ibid. p. 59).
For the individual, the place, the home and the physical artefacts connected to the home confirm one’s personal identity and are expressions of memories (narratives) of a lived life. In total, the home environment includes interests, daily routines and every day rituals which make us feel safe and satisfied in the immediate context. A person has possessions with whom he or she has been connected throughout life and these represent memories of a lived life. Sherman and Dacher (2005), in a critical essay, point out the significance of old persons’ cherished objects and how important it is to be conscious of and to respect this when an old person is in need of social care in his or her private home. Respect for the individual in need of personal assistance therefore requires that adaptations of the physical place to simplify the provision of care must not be made against the will of the person (ibid. p. 75).
Oswald and Wahl also address the importance of the home environment as people age (2005). They state that a majority of the ageing population in the Western countries live independently in their own home, and not in institutions, either alone or with a partner. This is also the case in Sweden as has been stated above. Even when in need of assistance and care, old people continue living in their own apartments or even houses. Oswald and Wahl refer to studies showing that older people spend more time at home than younger people, and also that there is ‘an age-related tendency for environmental centralization inside the house’ (ibid. 2005:25). This refers both to the home of an older person being comfortably adopted and the person’s outside interest needing to be accessible within a close radio from the home. As a result of health changes in later life, older persons must alter their homes or move to new dwellings that meet their needs. The meaning of home is of great significance when a person needs to relocate to a new place of residence because of health impairments and changing social conditions. The process of relocation should ideally be the result of the personal wishes of the older person, and an expression of how he or she prefers to spend the final years of life (ibid.). For an older person, the actual process of relocation is often a matter of moving from larger to a smaller dwelling. Whether it be from a house of one’s own to a rental property, or from a bigger to a smaller apartment, the relocation process involves decisions to part with cherished objects.
Stepping outside the home we come to the neighbourhood context, which can be regarded as the familiar circle within the home environment which constitutes the link to the surrounding world (Peace, Holland & Kellaher 2005; Svensson, 2006). The neighbourhood, whether urban or rural, is the intimate outer living environment and is an important factor of social life, well-being and self-identity. That important environmental changes must occur with increasing age due to health impairments is shown in an empirical study by Peace, Holland and Kellaher (2011), where they develop the concept of ‘option recognition’ by means of which they
describe the consequences for older individuals at points in time when, in spite of the importance of personal autonomy in establishing a “place of one’s own”, change occurs that requires a new strategy to maintain self-identity (2011:751).
Ageing is an individually experienced process in the life of an individual and the way in which ageing proceeds is influenced by factors on all levels, biological, psychological, and social as well as by gender and ethnicity. In spite of these differences, at some point in life the options for a good place to live during old age becomes more important than before, because they have to do with one’s survival during the final period of life.
Research on ageing in rural areas has been conducted from a variety of perspectives. Struthers (2005) studied the wishes of older persons regarding living conditions in American rural areas, and found a strong desire to continue living in these areas, with good housing conditions being an important precondition for this. The need for health care and assistance programs when growing old in rural areas has also been studied by Butler and de Poy (1996) and Butler and Sharland (2003). Butler and Kaye (2003) as well as Butler and Webster (2003) and Butler (2006) have pointed out that social workers need a better understanding of the living conditions among old people in rural areas in order to help them better and have the necessary competence and provide better service. Older persons living in rural areas differ from those in urban areas in important ways. They are generally less educated, poorer, have worse housing conditions and suffer from more chronic illnesses than retired persons in urban areas. In spite of faring worse in terms of those parameters than older people in urban areas, they appreciate the independence they experience in their rural living situation. Although most of the ageing population lives in urban areas, there are older persons who are deeply rooted in rural settings where they have spent most of their lives. The subject of rural ageing has been of interest in Sweden as well as in highly urbanized countries such as England, where the idea of personalization underpins a range of initiatives that aim to give older people, wherever they live, greater choice and control regarding the care and service they receive from the public sector. How these public efforts affect older people in rural areas has been studied by Manthorpe and Stevens (2009). This idea of personalization can be seen as corresponding to the concept of normalization which serves as ideological mantra within Swedish welfare policy. In the Swedish context, normalization has stressed the immediate social, home-like environment of an individual, at the expense of institutional care, whereas in the English context personalization emphasizes the individual preferences in way of life. This is to be regarded as an important difference between fundamental ways of creating welfare communities in liberal vs. social democratic regimes; the personalization emphasizes the individually adapted choice, while normalization emphasizes social and community aspects.
‘The living countryside’ (levande landsbygd) is a slogan used by Swedish politicians and policy makers when arguing in favour of efforts to maintain rural areas as sustainable and viable places to live for people of all ages and socioeconomic levels. Everyone should be able to have a high quality of life in these parts of the country with sufficient public services (preschool, school, health and social care) and commercial services, as well as satisfactory communications. Rural areas are geographically characterized by agriculture and forestry with local centres of public and commercial activity. Goals are formulated for the elderly, stating that they should be able to lead lives of high quality and satisfaction and receive requisite social and medical care. Research and reports have been published documenting the efforts of certain regions to bring care and services to older people in rural areas (Norling, 2007; Svensson, 2006; Socialstyrelsen, 2008). In an opinion article in Sweden’s largest daily newspaper, leading members of the Centre Party (Centerpartiet) argued for the right of older persons in need of home care to choose between private and public assistance alternatives (Dagens Nyheter July 19, 2011). These can be seen as signs of both an awareness of an ageing population living in the countryside and a wish for private alternatives within the care sector. In a yet unpublished paper Hjorth Aronsson (forthcoming) discusses the demographic situation in the biggest rural part of Örebro municipality, characterized by agriculture and forestry. The demographic statistics show a remaining population of persons of high or very high (>90 ys of age) living in this area, many of them in their own homes. The home care services for those in need demand a 24 hours of organization for some of them, which also include a vast travelling in cars n order to deliver the service needed.
The rural environment is not just the opposite of the urban environment in terms of its architectural, social, and dense way of thinking and imagining place, but also involves a way of living as a whole – a life style, a way of organizing everyday life, professional work, outcomes. The availability of public and commercial services differs to a greater or lesser extent than in the urban way of life. Distances are important factors in the organization of every day life as is shown in the studies mentioned above. The urban way of life involves both actually living in an urban environment but also, as Max Weber once stated in his famous essay on The City (1911–13/1987), a kind of mentality; i. e. you are an urban person and bring along your urban way of acting and behaving even when you go to a rural place on vacation. Max Weber regarded the bourgeois way of life as hegemonic for the rest of the population (ibid). Hence, the rural way of life means both to having a deep connection to a rural environment and being forced to have a connection to urban centres. This is the very challenge for the politicians when they talk about the ‘the living countryside’ for all, and of all ages.