Beyond Being Physically Active: Culturing the Ageing Body

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to investigate how physical activity and social interaction assist in generating better performance of the ageing body. A multifaceted ethnographic material was collected from January to February 2018 at a health and training centre called Gerdahallen, located in Lund, Sweden. The main empirical material consists of recorded and transcribed semi-structured in-depth interviews of six people aged 71-81 years old. Participant observations, a series of go-along interviews, and a questionnaire were also applied as supplementary methods to people aged 65 and above. The analyses focused on the experiences on and interpretations of the ageing body within its cultural context. In order to shape the analyses and findings of this study, the theoretical model MoSIBA – Motivation, Social Interaction, Being Active – was designed to investigate the three emerging cultural themes from the fieldwork. Several main theories were used to apprehend better understanding of the themes, such as Abraham H. Maslow’s human needs theory (1943), Edward L. Deci and Richard M. Ryan’s Self-Determination Theory (1991), Erving Goffman’s rules of conduct (1956), and Robert J. Havighurst’s activity theory of ageing (1961). By combining theories, methods, and materials, it generated broader, different, more comprehensive, and even new cultural analytical perspectives on the embodied ageing in Gerdahallen, how the embodiment of the ageing body is affected by social interactions, as well as the embodied performance of the ageing body. This research study revealed that (1) the ageing body and Gerdahallen culturally construct each other, (2) through its existence and characteristics, Gerdahallen provides a platform for the social interaction of the ageing body, (3) the quality of any kinds of activities holds the utmost significance to the ageing body, and (4) integrating certain ‘accentuation points’ with regular physical and social activity in more than just one place – not just in Gerdahallen – will ultimately affect the daily performance of the ageing body.

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