Social participation and active citizenship of older adults in caring neighbourhoods: Insights from the inter- and transdisciplinary project Caring-Living-Labs Graz

Abstract Precarious socio-economic living conditions, which are closely linked to housing, combined with age and migration-related inequalities, present significant challenges for older adults. Exacerbated by current care crises, these conditions often lead to social exclusion, a lack of opportunities for participation, and the fragility of care networks. The promotion of caring neighbourhoods and communities is playing an increasingly important role in addressing these challenges. As part of the participatory research project ‘Caring-Living-Labs Graz: Living well in old age’, and in cooperation with neighbourhood-based social work, approaches were developed to strengthen social participation, care relationships, and active citizenship among older residents in a socio-economically disadvantaged municipal housing complex. This meta-analysis focuses on the interplay between participatory practice and the specific potential and limitations of caring communities in fostering older adults’ participation and citizenship. The article seeks to offer a process-oriented and reflexive perspective on the development of caring neighbourhoods in the context of transdisciplinary research. Caring communities support the social participation of older adults in neighbourhoods particularly effectively when they (a) connect personal-existential, communal, and structural political levels within a care ethics framework embedded in a democratic learning process, and (b) engage older residents as active citizens, acknowledging their life experiences and skills. At the same time, the analysis highlights how social participation is shaped by intersecting structural inequalities—such as age, class, gender, migration, and spatial exclusion—which local initiatives often fail to fully address.