Feeling at Home, Having Places to Go: The Place Dimensions of Loneliness
摘要
In Chapter Seven, we examine how features of place and neighbourhood shape the experience of loneliness, as well as how loneliness affects participants' engagement with and attachment to different places. We show how places can make people feel connected or lonely, and this is contingent on accessibility, and social and economic positioning. Data from our interviews are organised around the types of places important to participants: the home and neighbourhood as spaces for safety and comfort, places of purpose and recognition (including workplaces and health facilities), and public places outside of home and work where people seek meaning in nature, encounter others through fleeting or incidental interactions and find opportunities to be sociable. We show how places can simultaneously make people feel connected or lonely, and this is contingent on accessibility, neighbourhood dynamics, social infrastructure, and participants' social and economic position.