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Understanding the interactions between older adults and their living spaces is an important research topic within the human dynamics of geographical scholarship because of their implications on the quality of aging. The prevailing theory of aging tends to stress aging in place which associates aging well with the home and community, thus inadvertently privileging residential neighborhoods as the focal point where older adults spend most of their time. Recent studies have, however, suggested that older adults also age in (social) networks that extend beyond their neighborhoods' physical locations. The need to incorporate perspectives on aging in networks has challenged the prioritization and the enforcement of absolute (or physical) space in GIS software. This study investigates the potential for integrating four top‐level spaces (absolute, relative, relational, and mental) to capture different dimensions of older adults' everyday lives. By leveraging on a dataset of older adults in Singapore, this study demonstrates how the four spaces combined facilitates understanding of aging, specifically their activity spaces, that would otherwise be achieved in a fragmented manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aging in place has become a popularly accepted logic and practice in both the academic and policy domains. Older adults' preferred facilities and social networks, however, might not always be situated in the residential neighborhoods where their homes are located. While recognizing the value of aging in place, this article argues that geographical proximity should not be conflated with aging well, nor should a spatially delimited place be the only locus of "community." We propose the concept of aging in networks to capture a range of social networks in the life-worlds of older adults, including those that extend beyond their neighborhoods. We combine qualitative and geographic information systems (GIS) methods (i.e., qualitative GIS) to analyze three types of activity spaces observed among older adults in Singapore. Our analysis elicits the reasons why older adults use facilities and cultivate social networks both within and beyond their neighborhoods. This approach highlights the importance of studying and supporting both the local and extralocal ties of older adults. The article draws on qualitative GIS research (interviews and Global Positioning System tracking) with fifty older adults in two neighborhoods in Singapore (from a wider survey with 1,199 older adults). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the spatial restrictions and social distancing measures which older adults experienced during COVID‐19 can be interpreted as a spatial breach in their webs of care, impacting their ability to connect socially with others through formal and informal social infrastructures. Drawing on a qualitative study of 50 older adults in Singapore (which is part of a wider mixed‐methods project consisting of 1199 participants), the paper shows how spatial breaches manifest as tension points in the older adults' webs of care. The paper highlights the paradoxical and ageist impacts of vulnerability tropes that emphasise the alleged universal vulnerability of older adults to the coronavirus. It provides further insights on why some tension points in the older adults' webs of care become resolved through adjustments while others remain unresolved. This analysis furthers our understanding of how older adults cope with the social disconnection that may happen during spatial breaches, especially when it is due to the choices of others to withdraw socially. Conceptually, the paper demonstrates how care assemblages and social infrastructures work in tandem to modulate the older adults' webs of care dynamically. The paper situates social infrastructures as key resource components in the webs of care of older adults, functioning as formal or informal platforms through which they access material, financial or emotional resources. Importantly, the paper shows how particular social infrastructures may become prominent or recede in one's webs of care as the person's care assemblages dynamically adjust to personal circumstances and relationships. In doing so, the paper bridges hitherto distinct literatures on how social infrastructures and assemblages are used to understand social life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose 'ageing in networks' as an optic that shows how the social networks of older adults extend beyond their residential neighbourhoods to extra-local and transnational settings. The paper brings together literature on ageing and social networks in mobilities and migration research to identify shared thematic framings between non-migrant and migrant older adults. Our approach broadens the analytical frame to encapsulate how ageing individually and in communities takes place through local and international mobility and via digital technologies. Ageing in networks also illuminates the importance of connecting their social protection needs with those of the people in their care assemblages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emotions and the affective qualities of space (i.e. affective spatialities) have featured prominently in social geography research. This report discusses how recent studies have taken seriously earlier critiques of affect theory, foregrounding intersubjective relations, collectives and the socio-spatial hierarchies of power instead. The emotions can be mobilised to serve entrenched interests or challenge power hierarchies in social life, including through digitally mediated spaces. Whether in real or digital life, emotional labour and emotion work are constitutive of temporality, sociality and spatiality. The report concludes by reflecting on what 'caring-with' the emotions means for our institutions and the international academy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]