Age-friendly communities: Designing a participative model for a former industrial territory

Résumé En

Process of social exclusion in ageing (Lavoie et al, 2015; Walsh et al, 2016) tend to limit the power of older adults on their political and social environment. Hence, different participative models have been developed to build age-friendly communities (Lui et al, 2009; Moulaert & Garon, 2016) with different approaches such as community development (Bourque, 2012) and participatory democracy (Blondiaux, 2008).We analyse a model experimented in France to improve social participation of older adults, inspired by an international research on participative models (Reiactis, 2016). The aim was to build a model that involves a diversity of aged population of a community (Charpentier, 2010) in identifying strengths and weaknesses of the environment and in defining solutions to improve it. Statistical, geographical and qualitative analysis have been crossed with workshops (n=10) involving three groups of older adults of an ex-industrial territory: elderly immigrant women(n=10);residents from a sheltered housing, mostly old single women or widows (n=15) and older adults with strong commitment in the community (n=12).A content analysis shows that the involvement of “invisibles” citizens (Rosanvallon, 2014) enhanced new issues and propositions. This experiment also gave a new role to voiceless older people as citizens. But the scope and nature of senior’s involvement will be discussed. Local public decision makers and community organisations have been involved in the process and contributed to implement solutions based on the proposals of senior citizens. However, limits of the experiment will also be presented through the analysis of stakeholders involved in the process.