Abstract

Andrea Kaiser-Grolimund’s PhD project is based in the field of medical anthropology and studies how people aged 60 years and above live their everyday lives in Tanzania's economic hub Dar es Salaam. By focusing on a former civil servants’ milieu belonging to Dar es Salaam’s middle class, the study further explores the ways the retired inhabitants are taking up global discourses of ‘healthy,’ ‘successful’ aging in order to retain strength and independence in old age. Hereby, the project lays particular emphasis on the older people’s engagements in everyday self-care. Apart from the older people’s perspectives, also caregivers—whom the older people consider to be most important, are of interest to the study. Therefore, through multi-sited research, the study investigates on how children or relatives living in the USA are engaged in transnational exchanges and shape their parents’ aging experiences.

Project Period

April 2012  - November 2017

Supervisors

Prof. Dr. Brigit Obrist, Prof. Dr. Till Förster, Dr. Piet van Eeuwijk

Funding

Swiss National Science Foundation (2012-2015)