Geographies of subjective age: Constructions of age and identity in European, Swedish and rural contexts

This project aims to study constructions of subjective age (SA) and how it unfolds on different geographic contexts: European, Swedish and rural.

Adding a spatial perspective to the study of SA, we explore SA as an apt and innovative entrance to new knowledge about the impact and extent of spatial rural/urban inequalities regarding identity formation, health and functionality. The project is based on interview and survey data.

Study 1 contributes to an understanding of the embeddedness and multidimensionality of subjective age by conducting in-depth interviews with people living in the hinterlands of Västerbotten/Norrbotten.

Study 2 is based on a project-tailored survey in order to explore how subjective age relations are constructed in and through space in Sweden. Study 3 uses SHARE data to explore how subjective age unfolds on national levels in Europe.

The project contributes both to the theory development on SA and to new empirical knowledge about how geographic imageries and geographic locales present challenges and opportunities to SA processes and their related outcomes.

By extension, the results resonate with contemporary discussions about rural/urban divides and welfare state legitimacy as people identify with subjective age while policy recommendations and lifestyle expectations to date largely build on chronological age.