Preparations Before the Last Journey
This essay is dealing with how to prepare yourself to your own death and the starting point of the discussion is the author´s self-narration. The research perspective is inspired by discursive psychology where no clear distinction is made between emotion “discourse” and emotions “them-selves”.
The article is about the role of the elderly Sami in the Swedish Sami community and it is based om deep-interviews. To sum up you can find two dominating creative strategies among the elderly Sami of today in my material, strategies which strives to achieve feelings of inclusion and life consistency, to feel substantiated and valuable and to be as independent as possible. One strategy, which is practised by the elderly who still live among their relatives in the Sami village, is to be as active as possible and as long as possible in the reindeer herding. The reindeer herding is a way of life which symbolizes the good life. Another strategy, which is available for the elderly living in a larger village or in the city, is to take on the role as creator of Sami identity for the younger generation. The re-establishment of the Sami gives a sense of meaning and continuity and creates a common bond to the younger Sami who are searching for their roots.
There are different discourses concerning women and ageing in the media and within the field of research about elderly people. In the public discourse elderly women are often associated with depression, poverty and weak health. The popular culture, with its worshipping attitude towards the young, has a great influence on the cultural conceptions of female ageing. At the same time new images of elderly women as desirable and attractive are presented in popular media. These images kan be understood as expressions for re-negotiations of what ageing means, but also as age-denying since it is the youtfullness among the elderly which is emphasised as something positive. Many researchers stress the importance of separating the public discourse on ageing, which is found in the media, from the women’s own experiences of ageing. Interview studies with elderly women have shown that women’s experiences of ageing can appear in a number of different ways depending on life context. This theme issue poses questions on ageing and femininity from a number of stand points by comparing the medial and public discourses with the women’s own experiences of ageing.
This article is about elderly Sami women who are front figures in the ethno-political mobilisation movement, acting from artistic platforms or in traditional political arenas. The Sami culture has been described as male-dominated and Sami women as dually oppressed, belonging to a minority people while also being women, but there are many Sami women, especially the elderly, who in recent decades have emerged as prominent figures in the fight for the survival of Sami culture. How do these prominent figures describe their own position and status? What strategies do they use, as elderly Sami women, to enter the Sami and non-Sami public spheres? How do they tell their story, what is it that motivates them, what obstacles have they faced and what has helped them? This chapter conducts an intersectional analysis on an individual level of the strategic approaches of three women. I have looked at the way these strategies emerge in the women's life stories. Depending on special circumstances, either currently or earlier in their life, ethnicity, gender, age and class are emphasized to various degrees in the different narratives.
Elderly women in a sparsely populated mountain area – victims in the periphery or central figures?
This study, based on participant observations and interviews, concerns the present situation of the elderly women in Frostviken, a sparsely populated mountain-area in the north of Sweden. What resources do these women have in order to achieve life-quality? Elderly women living in this part of the country is often described as victims in the periphery. In my study the elderly women have a central role in their community and in their net-work of relatives. They have high status because they stand out as symbols of the regional identity of Frostviken. The widdows who chooses to stay at the farms after their husbands has passed away, are resources to their families and relatives. The farm with all it´s assets – for example the built-up week-end cottages, the hunting- and fishing licences connected to the farm and the roots way back to the culture of the first settlers – is central to the ideal of life in Frostviken. As the owner of the farm the elderly women exists in the middle of a large network of relatives who comes visiting from time to time. Her role as a story-teller with great knowledge of local- and family history further promotes her central position.
This special issue focuses on the Sami struggle for cultural survival. The articles deal with strategies and initiatives going on in Sápmi today during a time of threats and challenges - a time that is also marked by resistance and mobilization. During the fall of 2013, the Swedish government has been criticized both by the United Nations’ Committee on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination, and by the Swedish Discrimination Ombudsman for its actions against the Sami population. The UN criticism was directed against a planned mine in Rönnbäcken, in the region of Västerbotten. Exploitation in Northern Sweden, not least the mining boom, is among of the biggest challenges in Sápmi today. Sami identity markers such as reindeer herding, land, language and oral traditions are examples of expressions that are highlighted in the battle to claim rights to land and water, to language, and to participation in decision making.
In this article, the authors have examined images of elderly Sami in relation to elderly care in Sweden between the years 1850 and 1930. What discourses can be revealed from spoken statements, written documents and every-day practices? This study has shown that the higher the degree of closeness and mutual exchange between Sami and non-Sami, the more the image of the "Other" as something "foreign" has been challenged and rejected. To be able to one-sidedly distance oneself from other people and turn them into stereotypes requires a certain amount of emotional and geographic distance. Where there has been physical distance and a lack of mutually beneficial exchange, the elderly Sami are more often described as "foreign," "threatening" and "deviant," a force of nature that must be tamed and controlled. The Sami dismissed as "not-quite-human" in the popular discourse were the paupers among them. A more balanced relationship existed between the Sami and the settlers in the mountains and the elderly Sami were often described as "one of the family." The staffs of the Sami old-age homes were far more nuanced in their view of the elderly than the civil servants sent from Stockholm to report back on the Sami.
This article analyses what it means to be an ageing female artist in the male dominated world of rock music. Our material consists of gig reviews and interviews. The ageing woman appears like an anomaly because she can no longer fulfill the role of the sex object. Patti Smith seems to be an exception to the rule and that is, among other things, because of her androgynous image.
Kapitlet behandlar lokal och regional identitet i gränstrakterna mellan Frostviken i nordvästra Jämtland och Lierne i Tröndelag, Norge. Med hjälp av djupintervjuer, deltagande observation och autoetnografisk metod urskiljer författarna kollektiva berättelser med anknytning till lokal och regional identitet på vardera sidan om nationsgränsen. I Lierne finns en positiv syn på den egna kulturen och en stark identifikation med bygden. Frostviksbornas självbild är också positiv, men har påverkats i negativ riktning av den svenska offentliga urbana diskursen.
Background: Limited knowledge is available on how very old people orchestrate and carry out their occupational life to achieve a sense of occupational well-being.
Study objectives: To highlight very old persons’ ways of describing and discussing their occupational engagement in relation to a sense of occupational well-being.
Methods: Qualitative interviews were conducted with 48 men and women between 90 and 98 years of age in their urban homes. Data were analysed using qualitative content analysis.
Results: The results show that occupational engagement in relation to the surrounding world and occupational engagement unconstrained by space and time were important in achieving occupational well-being. The surrounding world involves having contact with family, friends, and society as well as living up to a shared norm of being independent. Unconstrained by space and time includes thinking, planning and creating a narrative of life based on the past, present and future.
Limitations: The present study contributes to the body of knowledge focusing on occupational engagement and how it is linked to health through occupational well-being among older people, however; it is not known to what degree the respondents were experiencing healthy ageing.
Recommendations: Future studies should further develop the understanding of doing in relation to being among older people.