Postponing Passage

Doorways, Distinctions, and the Thresholds of Personhood among Older Chicagoans

Bibliographic Data

ID2263647
AuthorsElana D Buch (0000-0003-4502-7963, University of Iowa, corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume43
Issue1
Pages40-58
Publication date2015-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEthos (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0091-2131 • E-ISSN: 1548-1352
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/etho.12071
PMID26401061
OpenAlexW1481048612
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited32

This article analyzes the quotidian ways that older Chicagoans remade and traversed physical boundaries between their homes and the city beyond. In so doing, it explores how changing engagements with the environment impact social personhood in later life. In a context in which personhood is equated with independence, elders relying on paid care workers to remain in their homes found themselves at the threshold of social death. To sustain their independence and personhood, older Chicagoans sought to prevent spatial and social transitions using a range of everyday tactics and material practices located around the doorways of their homes. These liminal practices simultaneously reasserted racial, class, and other social distinctions between elders, home care workers and others, helping elders continue to occupy familiar subject positions. For these older adults, homes and their thresholds became resources with which they resisted profound changes to their daily lives, subjectivities, and social personhood

Context (archaeology) · Everyday life · Geography · Independence (probability theory) · Liminality · Personhood · Political science · Social science · Social worlds · Sociology · Anthropology · Gender Studies · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · Homelessness and Social Issues · Law · Urban, Neighborhood, and Segregation Studies

Tools

Open DOISci-HubOpen Access