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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.