My Home is My Castle/My Home is My Prison

Abstract

This article focuses on the co-constitution of the home and age(ing) in the retirement transition, that is, how the experiences of home change in the transition from work to retirement, and how the experiences of retiring change with transformations of the home. The article first outlines current literature on transitions in later life and the home. Subsequently, it presents data from the project ‘Doing Retiring’ along three lines of inquiry: meanings, practices and negotiations of and within the home, and how they change across the retirement transition. Finally, it discusses implications of understanding the transition from work to retirement and the home as not merely related, but co-constitutive. It concludes by suggesting a ‘doing’ approach to life course transitions which focuses on socio-material practices and thus offers a prominent place in transition research to spatiality, materiality and processuality.