As academic literature has shown, there is a preference among older adults to experience old age independently, in their own homes, giving shape to what has been called ageing in place. This phenomenon links residence, life cycle, and the experience of old age. Although it depends on many factors (housing characteristics, the elderly’s economy, or their social support, among others) it is based on place attachment as a key aspect, which comprises two different but interwoven dimensions: the home (private space) and the neighbourhood (social space), understood as an extended sphere of the home. Despite its importance, and beyond the consensus that the time spent in a place increases attachment to it, the processes whereby place attachment is constructed by the elderly and the role of the experience of neighbourhood are little known. This article intended to delve into the meaning of place attachment, its importance, and how it is built by the elderly population in urban areas. For this purpose, a qualitative study was conducted in Spain, selecting Madrid (the biggest city in the country) as a case study of how place attachment is shaped in an urban setting. To obtain in-depth information, data were collected through ethnographic interviews with 37 people aged 65–95 and 1 focus group among elderly aged 65–71. The most relevant finding of the qualitative analysis is the emotional significance of attachment to the local space as an element that enables continuity—as opposed to the rupture to which we associate old age- in the experience of the life cycle of the elderly. It should be noted that some of the results are conditioned by the specificities of Spanish society, particularly with regard to family ties. Potential extrapolations to other realities should take this point into account.

Urban ageing is an emerging domain that mixes two challenges of current societies: the ageing of the population and the increasing urbanisation. While ageing in place has demonstrated numerous benefits, some social sectors question whether the city is the right environment for ageing, since cities are home to many of the social problems that characterise contemporary societies. Urban environments are widely described as rootless in most academic articles, with a focus on the impersonality, transience, and segmentation of links between city dwellers. However, this portrayal coexists with contrasting views of urban life that instead emphasise the importance of the local setting and other experiences of attachment to the place of residence. From the age and gender perspectives, in some urban areas, the neighbourhood plays a fundamental role in the lives of many older women, as a natural setting for interaction and an area conducive to collaborative relationships and practical and emotional support in times of need. This article analyses the role that the local space plays in the lives of older women, the value they attach to it and the meaning they attribute to neighbourhood relations in the local urban environment. In order to analyse this reality, the Universidad (Malasaña) neighbourhood, has been selected as a case study, a central area in Madrid (Spain) exposed to numerous processes of transformation, which shows the highest rate of residential mobility in the area. Despite this reality, in a context marked by new difficulties, the conclusion shows that elderly women have a strong attachment to their neighbourhood. This attachment is not necessarily characterised by deep friendships, but by the existence of a significant social network that responds in case of need.

El artículo se centra en el espacio local, para explorar el impacto de la vulnerabilidad en el caso de las mujeres. Se prestará especial atención a los procedimi El artículo presta atención a los procedimientos y estrategias que las mujeres despliegan en su vida cotidiana para hacer frente a posibles dificultades, mediante el análisis de sus redes de apoyo y arraigos territoriales. El carácter innovador de este trabajo reside en su atención a la articulación entre distintas redes y arraigos locales. En entornos donde las redes institucionales ofrecen recursos limitados para dar respuesta a las necesidades de los ciudadanos, las redes de tipo informal, que se articulan en torno a familiares, vecinos y amistades, cumplen un papel fundamental para el bienestar de la población, junto con las redes formadas por entidades sociales. Además, el artículo aporta datos empíricos en clave comparativa sobre perfiles de mujeres que se diferencian por el momento de su ciclo vital (mayores, jóvenes con o sin hijos, adultas con hijos menores a su cargo) y su procedencia (nacidas en España o inmigrantes). entos y estrategias que ellas despliegan en su vida cotidiana para hacer frente a posibles dificultades, mediante el análisis de sus redes de apoyo y arraigos territoriales. El artículo se basa en el trabajo empírico realizado en 2018 y 2019, en siete zonas localizadas en cuatro barrios de la ciudad de Madrid y tres barrios de la periferia metropolitana. Se llevaron a cabo entrevistas con tres perfiles de mujeres: mayores, jóvenes y mujeres con hijos, siendo inmigrantes la mayoría de ellas. La vulnerabilidad experimentada por ellas nos acerca a una realidad social en la cual todavía se dejan sentir los efectos de la crisis económica de 2008, que se intensificarán con la crisis del COVID 19.

Intimate partner violence remains a critical social phenomenon in today's societies. Among the different effective resources and tools to address it, technology seems to offer an innovative procedure to reduce its impact. This article is based on the potential contribution of technology to protect female victims, offering a qualitative analysis of the testimonies of experts who contributed to an ongoing project to design a device capable of providing automatic and immediate warning when women are in at-risk situations. The analysis of the discourses of the experts interviewed provided valuable information to explore the possibilities, limitations and unforeseen effects offered by technology in general, and this new device in particular, for tackling intimate partner violence.

There is broad consensus regarding the fact that street art is a form of social, political and cultural protest and critique. However, rather than one single form, street art consists of a wide range of complex and contradictory styles featuring a diversity of interests, derivations and conflicts with underlying factors of both a structural and contextual nature. Taking as examples the cases of Pinacoteca a Cel Obert and Pinta Malasaña, in Barcelona and Madrid respectively, this article explores the production of urban art and notes how, as part of plans to revitalize neighborhoods, it assumes different versions in harmony with the characteristics and circumstances of the surrounding areas. Using a qualitative methodology, it explores the conception, development and results of both projects, revealing the heterogeneity of explanatory factors, the complexity of their implementation, and the role, which is not exempt from conflict and rivalry, of street artists in the urban space.

The socio-demographic changes that Spain has experienced in recent decades revealed the unsustainability of the traditional caregiving system based exclusively on the care provided by family members. In the new scenario, attending to situations of dependency started to be seen as a ‘social problem’ which required public intervention. The Spanish Dependency Law was the response to this demand. However, from among the measures of support available for dependents, cash-for-care to family members were given precedence, rather than the creation of public services to accomplish this purpose. Using the terminology on family care regimes, this article demonstrates that the imbalance which diminishes the role of public services in favour of financial support paid to relatives causes unwanted effects (perpetuation of the feminisation/re-familiarisation of care in this instance) and makes care for dependents more vulnerable, being contingent upon governments’ short-term budget policy, as has occurred with austerity policies during the current crisis.