Lovatt Melanie
Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Stirling, Stirling, UK.
Sociol Health Illn. 2018 Feb;40(2):366-378. doi: 10.1111/1467-9566.12568.
Residential homes encourage new residents to bring belongings with them, so that they can personalise their room and 'feel at home'. Existing literature on material culture in residential homes views objects as symbols and repositories of home and identity, which can facilitate a sense of belonging in residents through their display in residents' rooms. I suggest that this both misunderstands the processual and fluid nature of home and identity, and conceptualises objects as essentially passive. This article uses ethnographic data and theories of practice and relationality to argue that rather than the meaning of home being inherent in objects, or felt subjectively by residents, meaning is generated through ongoing, everyday interactions between the two. I show that residents became at home by acquiring new things -as well as displaying existing possessions - and also through interacting with mundane objects in everyday social and relational practices such as cleaning and hosting. I conclude that being at home in older people's residential homes need not be so different from being at home at other stages of the life course and in other settings. This challenges conceptualisations of older people's homes - and older age itself - as somehow unknowable and unfamiliar.
养老院鼓励新入住者携带个人物品，以便他们能够使自己的房间个性化并“有宾至如归之感”。关于养老院物质文化的现有文献将物品视为家与身份的象征及载体，这些物品通过在居民房间中的展示，能够促进居民的归属感。我认为这既误解了家与身份的过程性和流动性本质，又将物品概念化为本质上是被动的。本文运用人种志数据以及实践与关联性理论来论证，家的意义并非内在地存在于物品之中，也不是居民主观感受到的，而是通过两者之间持续的日常互动产生的。我表明，居民通过获取新物品以及展示现有财产，还通过在诸如清洁和招待等日常社会及关系实践中与日常物品互动，从而有了家的感觉。我得出结论，在老年人养老院中找到家的感觉与在生命历程的其他阶段以及其他环境中找到家的感觉并无太大不同。这对将老年人的家以及老年本身视为某种不可知和陌生的概念化观点提出了挑战。
