MANage – a research project on men and ageing

MANage – a research project on men and ageing

MANage is a joint project of the School of Health Sciences and School of Social Sciences and Humanities. It investigates men’s ageing from the perspectives of individual experiences of physical ageing, and changing social relations. The project aims to explore how cultural ideals of manhood create models and limits for men’s experiences of their own ageing. Another topic is in which ways age and ageing organize relationships between men of different ages, particularly within various men’s communities and generational relations between men.

The project is divided into two components. The first one focuses on men’s interpretations of physical ageing. Among the crucial questions of the components are how men interpret various ailments and symptoms in relation to age, and which kinds of effects the physical ageing has for men both in the labour-market and outside of it. The second component approaches ageing men as members of communities and groups, and scrutinizes the ways in which ageing is conceptualised in men’s leisure time communities. How ageing and masculinity are negotiated as a part of community membership? Both components also study how ageing changes men’s social relations and their positions in various communities.

The project aims to create a large and rich data set on men’s ageing. It consists of individual and focus group interviews with metal workers and technical managers, who are either approaching retirement, or have already retired, researchers’ study diaries, ethnographic material (observations, interviews, photographs etc.) collected within men’s leisure time communities, and a collection of articles from newspapers and journals. The research data will be analysed using qualitative methods, utilising discourse and content analytic methods for studying texts and picture.

Funding

Academy of Finland

Research group

PhD Ilkka Pietilä (School of Health Sciences, University of Tampere), ilkka.pietila[at]uta.fi

PhD Hanna Ojala (School of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Tampere), hanna.l.ojala[at]uta.fi