Nostalgia, Solastalgia and Biographical Contextualisation : Perspectives on the (Post)Socialist Social Change Among Older Czechs
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| Year of publication | 2019 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | There is long-term interest within environmental sociology in the place attachment, belonging and residential satisfaction among older adults in the context of social change. In this paper, I take a closer look into how these concepts are related to theories of commemoration, especially to the notion of nostalgia and solastalgia, and I will elaborate their usefulness, also noting the pitfalls of interpreting data from qualitative interviews on perceptions of change among older adults. I call for a fine-grained distinction between theoretical depictions of ‘contentment’ among older residents, offering the concept of ‘biographical contextualisation’ in order to better understand the evaluation of social change over a long-term perspective. To illustrate the application of the concept, the paper draws on empirical data from two projects on quality of life among older adults: those living in the biggest towns (N=36) and in rural areas (N=21) in the Czech Republic. |
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