| Abstract: | Much of the literature in gerontology has focused on the objective paramters of age, and the narrow causal links between behavior and environment. This has reduced the multi-layered experience of aging to stage-specific taxonomies of a disengagement process which depict behavioral units and overt operational actions, or alternately a developmental-biological paradigm that presents aging as a progressive deterioration of physical and cognitive copmetence. A more wholistic and open perspective of 'topophilia', or i.e., the relations, perceptions, attitudes, values and world view that affectively bond people and place was chosen. An oral history interview method was selected where elderly informants were invited to trace their environmental biographies over their life span. In this way the investigators were able to treat their informants' place memories as experiential data and analyzed the content of their remembrances for significant and recurring themes about space and place. This approach yielded importance insights into fundamental life themes of autonomy, privacy, environmental mastery, and sense of place. |
