From Legacies to Futures - The Lifeworlds of Older Adults in Europe

"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"--

About the author

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.

Product details

• Authors: David Prendergast, A Jamie Saris, A. Jamie Saris, Saris A. Jamie, Katja Seidel, Katja Prendergast Seidel, Seidel Katja
• Publisher: BERGHAHN BOOKS, INC
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 01.04.2025
• EAN: 9781805399513
• ISBN: 978-1-80539-951-3
• No. of pages: 216
• Series: Life Course, Culture and Aging: Global Transformations
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Social sciences (general); SOCIAL SCIENCE / Gerontology, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social, Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography, Sociology: family & relationships, Age groups: the elderly, Social and cultural anthropology, Sociology: family and relationships, Anthropology (General); Medical Anthropology; Sociology