Natalie Davet

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Generationsmötets ambivalenser

This thesis examines the production of intergenerational encounters and its function in social life. The aim of this study is to produce knowledge about how municipally arranged intergenerational interventions condition, enable and limit intergenerational relations and education through the co-production of age, time and space. The study was conducted in Gothenburg, Sweden, and combines two research projects: Kulturmöten utan gränser (Cultural Encounters without Borders) and Kulturhus Backaplan—“generationsdialog” i stadsutveckling (Cultural Centre Backa-plan—‘an Intergenerational Dialogue’ in City Planning). Fieldwork was conducted in formal educational and care institutions, as well as non-formal public urban spaces. Both projects involved participants from different generations, aged between three and eighty-four. The theoretical framework of this thesis is influenced by critical theory and social constructionism. It combines theoretical concepts that enable an analysis of linguistic, material and embodied aspects of the ‘un/doings’ of age in relation to time and space. The study’s methodological approach is designed based on multi-sited ethnography and involves participant observation, conversational interviews, analysis of policy documents and other textual material. The analysis is based on Foucauldian discourse analysis and involves an abductive interaction between the theoretical framework and the produced material. The results highlight the following central problem representations that have become prominent in the studied material: 1) the ‘un/doings’ of intergenerational encounters in different institutional environments, 2) the ways in which intergenerational encounters cut through different time regimes, and 3) the normalisation and idealisation of ‘hyper-effective’ intergenerational encounters to save time and money. The main conclusion is that municipally arranged intergenerational encounters are characterised by ambivalent messages in relation to social age, education, time and space. On the one hand, there is a visionary political effort towards increased age integration as a matter of societal survival. On the other hand, intergenerational encounters appear as superfluous or ‘non-existent’ as they lack political recognition, by being absent in the policy organisation of education and care, and in ways in which their practical knowledge tends to be neglected rather than cared for and used as a contribution to society.