Angelika Gabauer is a sociologist and urban researcher. Her work focuses on ageing and subjectivation, theories of space, urbanisation and urban transformation, care, democracy, and qualitative research methods, particularly narrative interviews and mobile ethnography. She has held research and visiting positions at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Urban Culture and Public Space at TU Wien, the Institute of Sociology at Friedrich Schiller University Jena, the City Institute at York University (Toronto), and the Space and Culture Research Group at the University of Alberta (Edmonton). In October 2025, she will join the Competence Centre for Gerontology and Health Research at Karl Landsteiner Privatuniversität Krems. She is co-editor of Care and the City: Encounters with Urban Studies (Routledge, 2022).
Doctoral Thesis: Dwelling in Old Age: Urban Life and Subjectivities of Ageing-in-Place
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This thesis examines how urban spaces shape and mediate experiences of older people “ageing in place”, addressing two key demographic trends: population ageing and urbanisation. The research is situated within the cross-disciplinary field of space-related ageing research, linking a practice-theoretical understanding of “doing age” with a relational conception of space that treats the social and material as co-constitutive. The study employs a Grounded Theory Methodology and is based on qualitative interviews and ethnographic fieldwork with retired adults aged 63 to 92 in Vienna – a city that actively integrates age-friendly strategies into its urban development agenda. The analysis explores how ageing manifests spatially through dwelling practices and how space and ageing are co-produced. The thesis offers two main contributions: First, it develops a theory of the constitutive interrelation between ageing and space, foregrounding the multiple relational dynamics of ageing and the temporalities of space. Second, it critically interrogates ageing-in-place as a hegemonic ideal in age-friendly urban development, advancing alternative perspectives for policy and planning.
Selected Publications
Knierbein, Sabine, Gabauer, Angelika and Lebuhn, Henrik (2025) Die Sorgende Stadt. IN: Eckhardt, Frank (ed.) Handbuch Stadtsoziologie. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-658-42419-0_42-1
Gabauer, Angelika, Knierbein, Sabine and Lindinger, Korinna (2025) Age Transitions Crossing Childhood, Youth and Old Age: Approaching Space and Age Relationally from an Urban Everyday Life Perspective. IN: Wanka, Anna, Freutel-Funke, Tabea, Andresen, Sabine and Oswald, Frank (eds.) Linking Ages: A Dialogue between Childhood and Ageing Research. New York/London: Routledge, pp. 107-118.
Fabricius, Jojo, Gabauer, Angelika, Hübl, Susanne, Lamprecht, Inga, Müller, Hannah und Saltiel, Rivka (2025) Polylog: Sorgende Stadt zwischen Utopie und Strategie. sub\urban zeitschrift für kritische stadtforschung 13(1): 201-214.
Gabauer, Angelika (2024) Altern in der Stadt: Zur Rolle der Architektur, architektur.aktuell 5/2024.
Gabauer, Angelika (2023) Aging in Cities: Everday Unsettling, Planning and Design. IN: Viderman, Tihomir, Knierbein, Sabine, Kränzle, Elina, Frank, Sybille, Roskamm, Nikolai and Wall, Ed (eds.) Unsettled Urban Space: Routines, Temporalities and Contestations. New York/London: Routledge, pp. 129-139.
Gabauer, Angelika, Knierbein, Sabine, Cohen, Nir, Lebuhn, Henrik, Trogal, Kim, Viderman, Tihomir and Haas, Tigran (2022, Open Access 2021) (eds) Care and the City: Encounters with Urban Studies. New York/London: Routledge.
Gabauer, Angelika and Knierbein, Sabine (2022) Book Review: The Caring City: Ethics of Urban Design by Juliet Davis, Bristol University Press 2022. Journal of Urban Design. DOI: 10.1080/13574809.2022.2143163
Lehner, Judith M. and Gabauer, Angelika (2021) Alltagsinfrastrukturen des Alter(n)s: Zur Erweiterung methodischer Zugänge für die Planung. IN: Dillinger, Thomas, Getzner, Michael, Kanonier, Arthur and Zech, Sibylla (eds.) 50 Jahre Raumplanung an der TU Wien studieren–lehren–forschen. Jahrbuch des Instituts für Raumplanung der TU Wien, 8: 636-649.
Knierbein, Sabine and Gabauer, Angelika (2020) Öffentliche Räume und intersektionale Stadtpolitik. IN: Heinrich Böll-Stiftung (ed.) Öffentlicher Raum! Politik der gesellschaftlichen Teilhabe und Zusammenkunft. Frankfurt/New York: Campus Verlag, pp. 125-146.
Knierbein, Sabine, Hou, Jeff and Gabauer, Angelika (2020) Public Space, Civic Dignity and Urban Resistance in the Age of Shrinking Democracy. Transactions of the Association of European Schools of Planning 4(1): 46-58.
Gabauer, Angelika and Knierbein, Sabine (2019) Die Veränderung der öffentlichen Räume: eine urbanistische Analyse, Zeitschrift für Außerschulische Bildung 1: 4-9.
Gabauer, Angelika (2018) Conflict vs. Consensus: An Emancipatory Understanding of Planning in a Pluralist Society. IN: Knierbein, Sabine and Viderman, Tihomir (eds.) Public Space Unbound: Urban Emancipation and the Post-Political Condition. New York/London: Routledge, pp. 173-188.
Knierbein, Sabine and Gabauer, Angelika (2017) Worlded Resistance as ‘Alter’ Politics: Train of Hope and the Protest Against the Akademikerball in Vienna. IN: Hou, Jeffrey and Knierbein, Sabine (eds.) City Unsilenced: Urban Resistance and Public Space in the Age of Shrinking Democracy. New York/London: Routledge, pp. 214-228.
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9183-5542