Young people and older people negotiating urban spaces in Sweden: enacting age, public spacing and belonging through intergenerational encounters

This article explores intergenerational encounters in urban spaces from the interconnections between age and place. The aim is to investigate young people’s and older people’s constructions of age and place in the process of belonging to society. Key issues focus on who becomes desirable in the public eye. The analysis is based on two ethnographic studies on municipal intergenerational interventions in childcare, elderly care and urban planning in Sweden’s second largest city Gothenburg. The concepts of spacing, enacting age and belonging are used to discuss power relations and movements based on three empirical examples from both institutional interventions and spontaneous outdoor encounters between generations. The analysis shows that despite the beneficial outcomes of the interventions, public spaces also become segregated and difficult for very young and senior citizens to access in everyday life. Thus, intergenerational encounters illustrate how notions of age condition who are considered visitors or residents in the achievements of belonging to Swedish society.