Casula, MarinaORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-9994-6343 (2025) When neighbours become caregivers: a case study in co-housing. In: Congrès de l'ENHR European Network on Housing research, 30 juin au 4 juillet 2025, Grand Paris Champ sur Marne.

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Abstract

What happens when one of your neighbours, in co-housing, gradually loses autonomy? What can your neighbours do to support you? Which collective practices of care can be put in place by people who are more than neighbours, but real caregivers? What could be the limits, both for caregivers and care receivers? Some answers to those questions will here be based on the results of a participatory action research conducted in France between 2019 and 2022. In one of the co-housings implied in this research, a collective has organized itself to support the oldest of them at the end of his life. Based on a field survey, I will present how this group of inhabitants envisioned helping each other in the face of ageing, before facing this collective experience of care. We see the key elements and limits. In another case, ageing women want to live together to age together and help each other. They have developed a solidarity “beyond the walls”, even though their project has encountered many difficulties to materialize. To analyse these two cases, we draw on the analytical framework of care theories, and propose the concept of cocaring.