The aim of this thesis is to explore rural women’s midlife experiences and interrogate the roles of health, social and community factors in these. In the cultural imagination, midlife signifies the onset of ageing and is thus framed in a discourse of decline. For women, it is often considered in terms of menopause and the end of fecundity and fertility. I propose that women’s experience of midlife is much broader than this; instead, it is characterised by transformation in multiple domains and health status is important. I suggest that the continuity theory of ageing is useful when conceptualising the life course. The concept of habitus enables exploration of how identity is re/constructed during the ageing process in response to changing bodily circumstances, such as health problems. (For complete abstract open document)
Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/245129 |
Creators | Warren, Narelle Louise |
Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
Language | English |
Detected Language | English |
Rights | Terms and Conditions: Copyright in works deposited in the University of Melbourne Eprints Repository (UMER) is retained by the copyright owner. The work may not be altered without permission from the copyright owner. Readers may only, download, print, and save electronic copies of whole works for their own personal non-commercial use. Any use that exceeds these limits requires permission from the copyright owner. Attribution is essential when quoting or paraphrasing from these works., Open Access |
Page generated in 0.0018 seconds