This article focuses on the everyday practices that make the place of the neighbourhood – social control, legitimacy and support, while also looking at how gender is produced in everyday life in the neighbourhood. In doing this, the discussion underlines the tremendous social and cultural influence of neighbours and the neighbourhood and argues that neighbourhoods need to be seen as a social formation as important as caste, class, ethnicity or religion. This is particularly important given that a strong focus on identities in recent decades has tended to eclipse social formations such as the neighbourhood. This ethnographic discussion is based on fieldwork carried out in neighbourhoods in two towns in India, Thalassery in Kerala, South India and Bikaner in Rajasthan, North India.

Commercial curses indicating an occupation, business, profit, workshops or shops, or targeting individuals identified by a trade number about sixty; most come from Greece and date to the fifth to third century bce. That the texts concern rivalries or conflicts between tradesmen has been the prevailing opinion, though ambiguity in curses that include multiple targets (sometimes with different trades) or family members have led some to maintain that competition may not explain commercial curses best, and instead suggest that the tablets reflect attempts to deal with risk or uncertainty arising from a range of social, legal, or political contexts. Though a steady stream of scholarship detailing economic activity, particularly at non-elite levels, has rightly reoriented the debate about the nature and scale of the ancient economy, and the strategies that craftsmen, merchants, and others engaged in commerce employed to mitigate concerns about risk and competition, the contribution of commercial curses, spells, and oracles has not been a part of the conversation. The curse tablets help further refine our understanding of the ancient economy because of what they reveal about concerns related to competitors, profit, and reputation, and the methods the practitioners used to hinder opponents. Rather than being at odds with commercial competition, those methods which target multiple craftsmen, their families, and others besides workshops, skills, and profit align with strategies of collaboration among ancient craftsmen and merchants and their reliance on social capital, described as social networks and notions of trust, reputation, and the shared norms that supported them.

‘Dementia-friendly communities’ herald a shift toward the neighbourhood as a locus for the care and support of people with dementia, sparking growing interest in the geographies of dementia care and raising questions over the shifting spatial and social experience of the condition. Existing research claims that many people with dementia experience a ‘shrinking world’ whereby the boundaries to their social and physical worlds gradually constrict over time, leading to a loss of control and independence. This paper reports a five-year, international study that investigated the neighbourhood experience of people with dementia and those who care for and support them. We interrogate the notion of a shrinking world and in so doing highlight an absence of attention paid to the agency and actions of people with dementia themselves. The paper draws together a socio-relational and embodied-material approach to question the adequacy of the shrinking world concept as an explanatory framework and to challenge reliance within policy and practice upon notions of place as fixed or stable. We argue instead for the importance of foregrounding ‘lived place’ and attending to social practices and the networks in which such practices evolve. Our findings have implications for policy and practice, emphasising the need to bolster the agency of people living with dementia as a route to fostering accessible and inclusive neighbourhoods.

Fear of crime among older people has been a frequent topic in ageing research, criminology and urban studies. The ‘environmental docility hypothesis’ assumes that older people are more vulnerable to adverse neighbourhood conditions than younger age groups. Yet, few studies have tested this influential hypothesis using samples of respondents covering the complete adult lifespan. Looking at fear of crime, we investigated the person–environment interaction of age and neighbourhood disadvantage, using two independent surveys comprising 12,620 respondents aged 25–90 years residing in 435 neighbourhoods in four cities in Germany and Australia. We used multi-level analysis and cross-level interactions to model age-differential effects of neighbourhood disadvantage on fear. Contrary to the hypothesis, we found a weakening of neighbourhood effects on fear with age. The strong effect of neighbourhood disadvantage on fear of crime dropped by around half from the youngest (25 years) to the oldest age (90 years) in both countries. Younger people were almost as fearful as older people in the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods, but older people were considerably more fearful than younger ages in better-off neighbourhoods. We found limited empirical support for the assumption that this diminished association between neighbourhood disadvantage and fear can be explained by the stronger neighbourhood attachment of older people. The limitations of the analysis and potential future directions of research are discussed.

Based on findings from a study examining the lived experiences of dementia carers in their neighbourhoods, this article offers a vision of what dementia-friendly communities could look like from a carer perspective and in a Canadian context. Twelve carers in Ottawa and its surrounding regions were interviewed using a combination of social network maps, mobile interviews, and participant-driven photography. The findings, organized according to the categories “relationships”, “places”, and “everyday practices”, reveal that many of the carers’ choices regarding businesses, services, home location, outings, and everyday practices, are based on a desire to maintain social connections and social citizenship. The article concludes with recommendations for consideration in the planning of dementia-friendly neighbourhood initiatives.

Previous research shows the benefits of volunteerism to individuals and communities. The purpose of this study was to determine whether lower perceived neighbourhood safety is associated with reduced volunteerism and whether this association differs by sex. Data from the 2008 Health and Retirement Study in the United States of America were used (N = 13,009 adults 60 years and older). Multivariate logistic regression models were estimated to assess the association between perceived neighbourhood safety and volunteerism while controlling for potential confounders. Perceived neighbourhood safety was associated with volunteering. The odds of volunteering were higher for those rating their perceived neighbourhood safety as excellent compared with those rating their perceived neighbourhood safety as fair/poor. Those rating their perceived neighbourhood safety as very good also had greater odds of volunteering than those rating their perceived neighbourhood safety as fair/poor. Results differed somewhat by gender. Men who perceived their neighbourhood safety as excellent had increased odds of volunteering. The association of neighbourhood safety with volunteerism was significant for women rating their perceived neighbourhood safety as excellent or very good. Among men, being married was associated with increased odds of volunteering; being completely or partly retired was associated with increased odds of volunteering among women. Initiatives aimed at improving older adults’ perceptions of safety would help improve volunteerism, which is beneficial to both older adults and communities.

The age-friendly cities and communities movement has focused on how to better support older adults to age well within urban environments. Central to ‘ageing well’ and ‘active ageing’ agendas is ensuring that older adults can participate in meaningful forms of social participation. The benefits of social participation in old age have been well documented, and research amongst community-dwelling older adults has explored some of the neighbourhood qualities that facilitate or impede such forms of engagement. However, understandings of how older adults construct and negotiate social participation within everyday urban environments have been largely unexplored. To address this gap, we present results from 104 interviews conducted with older adults living in three cities and nine neighbourhoods in the United Kingdom (UK). The findings explore three themes generated from the research: ‘constructing meaningful social participation in old age’, ‘negotiating access to social participation’ and ‘navigating home and community’. Across these themes, the paper describes how experiences of social participation in old age involve a number of inter-connected physical, psychological and social processes experienced by individuals across a range of environmental settings including the home, outdoor spaces and community facilities. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of the findings for practice, specifically in the delivery of age-friendly communities.

The extent of social isolation experienced by people living with dementia who reside in the community has been well acknowledged, yet little is known about how people living alone with dementia maintain neighbourhood-based connections. The purpose of this study is to examine the experiences of people with dementia who live alone, focusing upon how they establish social networks and relationships in a neighbourhood context, and how they are supported to maintain this social context within everyday life. Multiple data collection methods were used including, semi-structured interviews, walking interviews, guided home tours and social network mapping, which were conducted with 14 community-dwelling people living alone with dementia (11 women and three men) situated across the three international study sites in England, Scotland and Sweden. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. The analysis revealed four main themes: (a) making the effort to stay connected; (b) befriending by organisations and facilitated friendships; (c) the quiet neighbourhood atmosphere; and (d) changing social connections. The analysis suggests that people with dementia who live alone were active agents who took control to find and maintain relationships and social networks in the neighbourhood. Our findings indicate the need to raise awareness about this specific group in both policy and practice, and to find creative ways to help people connect through everyday activities and by spontaneous encounters in the neighbourhood.