Older people's experiences of recent urban re-generation: a psychosocial perspective
type: CreativeWork
description: This study offers a policy-relevant psychosocial understanding of ways in which regeneration can affect the lives of older people. It examined the experiences of people over sixty in England of local regeneration through an in-depth biographical case-based methodology. The fieldwork was conducted in 2006/07 in Bromley by Bow/London and Burnley Wood/Burnley as two urban areas that had been experiencing substantial – and very different - regeneration activity. A review of the literature indicated that research with a focus on older people in regeneration was limited, and that much scope remained for an in-depth understanding of (older) individuals’ experiences of regeneration as a basis for future policy and practice. The study addressed this gap in knowledge through a psychosocial approach. Older people were conceptualised as psychosocial beings in whose experiencing psychic and social dimensions interact. The study drew on the psychoanalytic theories of Melanie Klein and theorists in the British Object Relations tradition, as well as on the social theory of Pierre Bourdieu as a framework for exploring experiences of regeneration in terms of psychic and social, conscious and unconscious dimensions. The interview-based Biographical-Narrative Interpretive Method (BNIM) was adopted as a method capable of yielding the kind of detailed data that can provide the empirical basis of a psychoanalytically-informed psychosocial approach. Sixteen interviews were conducted. Interview analysis involved panels. Three fully developed contrasting case studies are presented in the thesis. Further case material from the remaining interviews that supported or confounded the analysis arising from these three core cases is presented in the form of twelve summary vignettes. The study concludes that local regeneration can work well for older people and their communities where it provides containing structures that facilitate relations of recognition across difference and enable older people…
abstract: This study offers a policy-relevant psychosocial understanding of ways in which regeneration can affect the lives of older people. It examined the experiences of people over sixty in England of local regeneration through an in-depth biographical case-based methodology. The fieldwork was conducted in 2006/07 in Bromley by Bow/London and Burnley Wood/Burnley as two urban areas that had been experiencing substantial – and very different - regeneration activity. A review of the literature indicated that research with a focus on older people in regeneration was limited, and that much scope remained for an in-depth understanding of (older) individuals’ experiences of regeneration as a basis for future policy and practice. The study addressed this gap in knowledge through a psychosocial approach. Older people were conceptualised as psychosocial beings in whose experiencing psychic and social dimensions interact. The study drew on the psychoanalytic theories of Melanie Klein and theorists in the British Object Relations tradition, as well as on the social theory of Pierre Bourdieu as a framework for exploring experiences of regeneration in terms of psychic and social, conscious and unconscious dimensions. The interview-based Biographical-Narrative Interpretive Method (BNIM) was adopted as a method capable of yielding the kind of detailed data that can provide the empirical basis of a psychoanalytically-informed psychosocial approach. Sixteen interviews were conducted. Interview analysis involved panels. Three fully developed contrasting case studies are presented in the thesis. Further case material from the remaining interviews that supported or confounded the analysis arising from these three core cases is presented in the form of twelve summary vignettes. The study concludes that local regeneration can work well for older people and their communities where it provides containing structures that facilitate relations of recognition across difference and enable older people…
author: Buckner, Stefanie
language: en
date published: 2012-11
date modified: 2026-07-24T01:35:38Z
provider: University of Central Lancashire
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Central Lancashire