From Legacies to Futures

The Lifeworlds of Older Adults in Europe

Katja Seidel, David Prendergast, A. Jamie Saris (Autoren)

Buch | Hardcover

216 Seiten

2025
Berghahn Books (Verlag)
978-1-80539-951-3 (ISBN)

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Through ninety-four ethnographic case studies of community dwelling older adults in Europe before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, this book highlights the importance of agency, friction between self-perceptions on age and outside impositions and the need to deconstruct old age as a homogenizing category of belonging.

Older adults want to exercise a sense of control over their relationships, structures and surroundings as they navigate the later life course. Through detailed ethnographic case studies, this book examines the dynamic lifeworlds of a hundred and seven community-dwelling older adults in Europe before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. It explores the importance of agency, the frictions between self-perceptions of age and outside impositions and the need to deconstruct old age as a homogenising category. These insights challenge simple narratives of older persons as social burdens by highlighting the complex roles they fill in family, neighbourhood and communities.

Katja Seidel is a Senior Lecturer at the Unit for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Innsbruck and co-Director of the ‘ethnocineca – International Documentary Film Festival’ in Vienna. She has conducted fieldwork in Argentina, Nicaragua, Ethiopia, Spain and Germany, and co-directed the Holocaust research project ‘A Letter to the Stars’ in Vienna.

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Jay Sokolovsky

Introduction: Ageing in a Time of Crisis

Chapter 1. Social Worlds: Living, Learning and Liaising

Chapter 2. Moving through the World

Chapter 3. Working Worlds

Chapter 4. Financial Worlds: Spending and Affording

Chapter 5. Informal Care Worlds: Providing Care

Chapter 6. Formal Care Worlds: Receiving Care

Chapter 7. Legacies and Future Worlds

Conclusion: Age, Agency and a Summary

Epilogue

Appendix: Participant Index

References

Index

Erscheinungsdatum	07.03.2025
Reihe/Serie	Life Course, Culture and Aging: Global Transformations
Zusatzinfo	Bibliography; Index
Verlagsort	Oxford
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Themenwelt	Sozialwissenschaften ► Ethnologie
Themenwelt	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Mikrosoziologie
ISBN-10	1-80539-951-9 / 1805399519
ISBN-13	978-1-80539-951-3 / 9781805399513
Zustand	Neuware