People Like Me: Multiple Belongings Among Senior Mobile Home Residents in Florida

Abstract

Purpose – This chapter examines place-based social practices and experiences, conceptualized as ‘belonging’, among older Americans who live in senior mobile home communities in Florida.

Design/Methodology/Approach – Pursuing a grounded theory approach, the chapter is based on 18 ethnographic interviews with senior mobile home households, conducted between 2005 and 2007.

Findings – Following lifestyle migration, senior Floridians developed interrelated, yet distinct, forms of belonging within their varying social and spatial environments, combining elements of selective, elective and resistant belonging.

Originality/Value – The study participants’ focus on shared and socially valued group characteristics in their construction of place-based identity problematizes the possibility of a successful integration of outsiders, raising new questions for the concept and future study of belonging.

Citation

Kusenbach, M. (2018), "People Like Me: Multiple Belongings Among Senior Mobile Home Residents in Florida", Davis, K., Ghorashi, H. and Smets, P. (Ed.) Contested Belonging: Spaces, Practices, Biographies, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 43-66. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-78743-206-220181003