Home as a place

This chapter explores home as a place, or physical insidedness, which refers to older people’s familiarity with environment both at home and in the neighbourhood and community. Specifically, the chapter identifies ways through which attachment to home, neighbourhood, and communities contributes to older Chinese migrants’ development of place attachment and place identity as they age in a foreign land. Drawing on empirical data from photographs provided by the participants and in-depth interviews, the chapter illustrates that attachment to place is developed from everyday routines. Those routines include arranging furniture, decorating the house with cultural objects, growing plants reminiscent of old country in private gardens of the house, walking to local shops, accessing public transport, and visiting friends. A sense of control over the place and the surrounding neighbourhood in which one resides is crucial to the development of place identity in older Chinese migrants. Place identity, in turn, encourages social participation in the community and fosters a sense of cultural continuity and belonging in the new country. The chapter concludes that physical insideness contributes to older Chinese migrants’ building a sense of home in Australia through maintaining independence, cultural identity continuity, and belonging in the host country.