Everyday life in the context of outdoor spaces for older people
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Susana Alves [1]
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[1] Edinburgh College of Art—OPENspace Research Centre
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- Localización: PsyEcology: Bilingual Journal of Environmental Psychology / Revista Bilingüe de Psicología Ambiental, ISSN-e 1989-9386, ISSN 2171-1976, Vol. 2, Nº. 3, 2011, págs. 299-307
- Idioma: inglés
- Enlaces
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Resumen
This paper addresses older people's outdoor activities by taking an everyday life perspective to research. Everyday life refers to daily pursuits undertaken by different individuals. Everyday life is also a model for conceptualising person-environment relationships and for proposing practice-related actions to improve quality of life. This article argues for the need to give ‘everyday life’ a more prominent role in environmental psychology in the examination of what social and environmental factors contribute to health and wellbeing of older adults. As such, quality of life needs to be placed in the realm of one's existence and everyday environment. I define everyday life and place it in the context of ageing research. Next, I present some research tools for everyday life—derived from the Inclusive Design for Getting Outdoors (I'DGO) research project—which are useful to measure everyday patterns of outdoor activities. The article concludes by arguing for the use of an everyday life model to integrate research and practice in ageing research.
