Pensionärer och pensionärskultur

Abstract

This article attempts to discuss culture-building among Swedish pensioners. The number of pensioners is constantly growing, and they are healthier and wealthier than ever before. In pensioners' activity centres, clubs, associations of many kinds, the aged are now in the midst of creating a culture of their own. An ethnographic study of the activity centre at Mariahissen, Stockholm, where a large number of pensioners from all over Stockholm meet regularly, shows a preoccupation with activities relating to the body and the senses, with emotional, sensual and aesthetic qualities, such as dancing, singing, gymnastics, playing cards and weaving. This can be understood as a kind of aesthetic compensation for the loss of power and status following retirement, or as a way of reclaiming areas of life that have been denied for many years of hard work. An interesting find, with strong support from other studies, is that a central standpoint among the pensioners to their activities, and to themselves as a socio-cultural category or group, is one of ambivalence. Another find is that most of what pensioners do, is done during day-time, or former work-hours. The activities in general can be seen, and are indeed often looked upon among the pensioners themselves, as a kind of "work". This contributes to the aforementioned ambivalence, by creating a clear-cut border between two types of leisure activities, the old (fritid) and the new (fri tid), with different content and meaning.