Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T02:32:13.344Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Memoryscapes and mediascapes: musical formations of ‘pensioners’ in late 20th-century Sweden

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 April 2012

Sverker Hyltén-Cavallius
Sverker Hyltén-Cavallius
Affiliation:
Department of Cultural Sciences, University of Gothenburg, PO Box 200, SE 405 30 Göteborg, Sweden E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The late 20th century in Sweden saw the growth of music solely aimed at an elderly audience. This article discusses music within pensioner organisations, first assessing a cassette compilation marketed through the members' magazine of Sweden's largest pensioner organisation and, second, embarking on ethnographies of meetings within a study circle in music-listening arranged through a pensioner organisation, conducted in 1999–2000. The music selection in the cassette compilation diminishes certain genres of the included period and foregrounds others, adding up to a specific homogeneous national memoryscape. A central theme in the study circle was the production and negotiation of generational and individual memoryscapes. The two mediascapes produced different memoryscapes, one being nationally and temporally bounded, the other being at the same time local, transnational and transtemporal. To conclude, the article claims that if we wish to understand the nexus of ageing and music in contemporary society, we need to listen not only to musicians, entrepreneurs and care institutions, but also to their intended audiences.

Type
Articles
Information
Popular Music , Volume 31 , Special Issue 2: As Time Goes By: Music, Dance and Ageing , May 2012 , pp. 279 - 295
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References

Anderson, B. 1983. Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London, Verso)Google Scholar
Appadurai, A. 1996. Modernity at Large. Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press)Google Scholar
Bendix, R. 2000. ‘The pleasures of the ear. Toward an ethnography of listening’, Cultural Analysis, 1, pp. 33–50Google Scholar
Blaikie, A. 1999. Ageing and Popular Culture (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press)Google Scholar
Brolinson, P.-E., and Larsen, H. 1984. När rocken slog i Sverige. Svensk rockhistoria 1955–65 [When Rock Hit in Sweden. Swedish Rock History 1955–65] (Falköping, Sweden Music)Google Scholar
Connerton, P. 1989. How Societies Remember (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Degnen, C. 2005. ‘Relationality, place, and absence: a threedimensional perspective on social memory’, The sociological review, 53/4, pp. 429–744CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Emerson, R.M., Fretz, R.I., and Shaw, L.L. 1995. Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes (Chicago, University of Chicago Press)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eskeröd, A. 1947. Årets äring. Etnologiska studier i skördens och julens tro och sed [The Year's Crop. Ethnological Studies in Beliefs and Customs Surrounding Harvest and Christmas] (Stockholm, Nordiska museet)Google Scholar
Fornäs, J. 2004. Moderna människor. Folkhemmet och jazzen [Modern People. The People's Home and Jazz] (Stockholm, Norstedt)Google Scholar
Frankel, G. 1998. Den klädsamma pensionären. Några äldre kvinnors funderingar kring kläder och äldre [The Stylish Pensioner. Older Women's Thoughts on Clothes and the Elderly] (Stockholm, Socialtjänsten)Google Scholar
Gaunt, D. 1996. ‘Svenskarna upptäcker åldersdiskriminering inom arbetslivet’ [‘The Swedes discover ageism in work life’], in Arbeta! Mot passivitet och isolering! Kampen för äldres rätt till arbete och aktivitet i Sverige 1950–1990 [Work! Against Passiveness and Isolation! The Struggle for the Elderly's Right to Work and Activity in Sweden 1950–1990], ed. Sutorius, U. (Stockholm, Socialtjänsten)Google Scholar
Halbwachs, M. 1992[1952]. ‘The social frameworks of memory’, In On Collective Memory, ed. Coser, L.A. (Chicago, University of Chicago Press)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hartley, L.P. 1953. The Go-Between (London, Hamish Hamilton)Google Scholar
Hazan, H. 1994. Old Age: Constructions and Deconstructions (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hyltén-Cavallius, S. 2005. Minnets spelrum. Om musik och pensionärskap [A Margin for Memory. On Music and Pensionerhood] (Hedemora, Gidlunds)Google Scholar
Jönsson, H. 2001. Det moderna åldrandet. Pensionärsogranisationernas bilder av äldre 1941–1995 [Modern Ageing. The Image of the Elderly in Pensioners' Organizations 1941–1995] (Lund, Socialhögskolan)Google Scholar
Kirk, H. 1994. Da alderen blev en diagnose. Konstruktionen af kategorien ‘alderdom'i 1800-tallets laegelitteratur. En medicinsk-idehistorisk analyse [When Age Became a Diagnosis. The Construction of the Category ‘Old Age’ in 19th Century Medical Literature. A Medico-history of Ideas Analysis] (København, Munksgaard)Google Scholar
Lilliestam, L. 1998. Svensk rock. Musik, lyrik, historik [Swedish Rock. Music, Lyrics, History] (Gothenburg, Bo Ejeby)Google Scholar
Löfgren, O. 1993. ‘Nationella arenor’ [‘National arenas’], In Försvenskningen av Sverige. Förvandlingar av det svenska [The Swedification of Sweden. Transformations of the Swedish], ed. Ehn, B., Frykman, J. and Löfgren, O. (Stockholm, Natur & Kultur)Google Scholar
Lundgren, E. 2000. ‘Homelike housing for elderly people – materialized ideology’, Housing, Theory and Society, 17/3, pp. 109–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marcus, G. 1995. ‘Ethnography in/of the world system: the emergence of multi-sited ethnography’, Annual Review of Anthropology, 24, pp. 95–117CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McHugh, K. 2003. ‘Three faces of ageism: society, image and place’, Ageing and Society, 23, pp. 165–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Minois, G. 1989. History of Old Age. From Antiquity to the Renaissance (Chicago, University of Chicago Press)Google Scholar
Nora, P. 1989. ‘Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire’, Representations, 26, pp. 7–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nuttall, M. 1992. Arctic Homeland. Kinship, Community and Development in Northwest Greenland (London, Belhaven)Google Scholar
O'Dell, T. 1997. Culture Unbound. Americanization and Everyday Life in Sweden (Lund, Nordic Academic Press)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ramsten, M. 1992. Återklang. Svensk folkmusik i förändring 1930–1970 [Resonance. Swedish Folk Music in Transformation 1930–1970] (Gothenburg, Göteborg University)Google Scholar
Ronström, O. 1993. ‘Orchestrating and controlling the foreign: the festival of diversity in Stockholm City Hall’, Journal of Folklore Research, 30/1, pp. 75–84Google Scholar
Ronström, O. 1997. Russindisco och seniordans. Pensionärsnöjen och modernitet [Raisin Disco and Senior Dancing. Pensioners' Entertainment and Modernity] (Stockholm, Resursförvaltningen för skola och socialtjänst)Google Scholar
Samuel, R. 1994. Theatres of Memory. Past and Present in Contemporary Culture (London, Verso)Google Scholar
Sjöholm, C. 2003. Gå på bio. Rum för drömmar i folkhemmets Sverige [Go to the Movies. Spaces for Dreams in ‘People's Home’ Sweden] (Eslöv, Symposion)Google Scholar
Small, C. 1998. Musicking. The Meanings of Performing and Listening (Hannover, NH, University Press of New England)Google Scholar
SOU. 2003. Äldrepolitik för framtiden [A Future Policy for the Elderly] (Stockholm, Socialdepartementet)Google Scholar
Svensson, B. 1993. Bortom all ära och redlighet. Tattarnas spel med rättvisan [Miles from civilization. The tinkers' encounter with justice.] Stockholm: Nordiska Museet. (Diss).Google Scholar
Trouillot, M.-R. 1995. Silencing the Past. Power and the Production of History (Boston, Beacon Press)Google Scholar
White, H. 1981. ‘The value of narrativity in the representation of reality’, In On Narrative, ed. Mitchell, W.J.T. (Chicago, University of Chicago Press)Google Scholar
Woodward, K. (ed.) 1999. Figuring Age. Women, Bodies, Generations (Bloomington and Indianapolis, Indiana University Press)Google Scholar
Yates, F.A. 1966. The Art of Memory (Chicago, University of Chicago Press)Google Scholar
Yoneyama, L. 1994. ‘Taming the memoryscape. Hiroshima's urban renewal’, In Remapping Memory: the Politics of TimeSpace, ed. Boyarin, J. (Minnesota, University of Minneapolis Press)Google Scholar
Young, K.G. 1987. Taleworlds and Storyrealms: The Phenomenology of Narrative (Dordrecht, University of Matrinus Nijhoff Publishers)CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Discography

Lugna blå timmar. Naxos, NAX-8503024-26. 1997Google Scholar
Svenska favoriter 107. Svenska favoriter. 1994Google Scholar