Negotiating vulnerability and attractiveness through dress.

BACKGROUND: The ageing female body is particularly exposed to the social gaze. While it should remain fit and durable as well as attractive and desirable, there is the danger of ridicule through supposedly too youthful or too outlandish performance. Women's clothing practices can conform to social expectations, can circumvent them, can actively protest against them, and possibly change social demands. In every part of the process, i.e., the experience of bodily changes, the experience of social expectations, consumer choices, the practices of clothing and reactions to clothing choices, the body and getting dressed becomes a site of new feelings of vulnerability. OBJECTIVE: This article asks how these vulnerabilities are presented in the clothing practices of older women, are expressed in the materiality of clothes and in the practices of getting dressed. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Data from a study that followed a situational analysis methodology and used semi-structured interviews and photo elicitation, were re-examined through the lens of vulnerability. RESULTS: Different aspects to vulnerability are presented in this article. Interviewees had to come to terms with bodily changes and made arrangement to the way they dressed that in turn could collide with subjective and social expectations of normative femininity. In this process of acquiescing, new vulnerabilities were produced; however, interviewees developed clothing strategies that provided them with experiences of their own attractiveness. They also had to adapt to changing circumstances to present themselves as fashionable and attractive due to age. CONCLUSION: Practitioners can address feelings of vulnerabilities when talking about gendered clothing practices, for example through biographical work.

[The spatial dimensions of supported communitization : An American case example]. / Die räumliche Dimension unterstützter Vergemeinschaftung : Ein US-amerikanisches Fallbeispiel.

BACKGROUND: Weak relationships result in feelings of belonging to a social neighborhood, as can be found in retirement communities. OBJECTIVE: This article analyzes spatial arrangements and the registered rules for furnishings with respect to their potential to facilitate communitization processes and explain their modes of action as potential third places. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The study took place in an American Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC). The analysis combined biographical narrations with inhabitants, interview material with staff as well as field notes. RESULTS: The interviewed persons predominantly talked about the dining hall regarding their first steps in the community of the CCRC. The community table, situated in the dining hall, is equipped with rules to ensure participation in communitization processes. The rules are monitored by a committee of volunteers and staff members. The professionally supported processes result in feelings of belonging. Deviant behavior, e. g. refusing participation, results in an increased effort of staff to support communitization. DISCUSSION: Spatial structures create places for interaction, positively influence communitization and in their representation are reminiscent of third places in natural neighborhoods; however, due to class barriers and rules they cannot be described as third places.

Friendship Repertoires and Care Arrangement: A Praxeological Approach.

Friends are important companions and serve as sources for diverse dimensions of social support, including elderly care. Rather than researching populations that have already established care arrangements including friends, the author seeks to understand relationship systems with a focus on the inner logic friendship to consequently describe and understand involved care arrangements, be it with family members or friends. To illustrate the diversity of friendship repertoires, qualitative interviews with older adult Germans are analyzed regarding cognitive concepts of friendships in contrast to familiar ties as well as social practices around relationship systems. While some repertoires successfully include chosen ties in their care arrangements, others not only focus on family, they do not wish to receive care from friends. The article's praxeological approach highlights the need to reflect habitual differences when thinking about elderly informal care arrangements.