Joanna Zalewska
Curriculum Vitae
Current Project
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The topic of the project is cultural interpretation and personal experience of old age in youth culture, in specific context of Poland. Polish elders have lived in the period of radical and permanent change and there are many patterns of aging: (1) dating from traditional peasant culture, (2) created during the socialist period which lasted the most part of the lifetime of present old people, (3) the phenomenon of youth culture with its anti-aging ideology which is the effect of global influence after 1989 transformation. The aim is to understand various ways of aging in the context of individual biographies and elders' memory. The research is conducted in Warsaw where youth culture is commonly spread. The research method is multi-sited ethnography with the use of the methods of participant observation, in-depth interviews and biographical narrative interviews. Being in the changed world by the old passing selves occurs to be the important issue in the experience of old age. There seems to be a tension between being at home versus strangeness towards reality which expresses the tension between living in the world built by oneself versus existing in prefigurative culture of a specific shape of youth culture that is new and external in Polish context.
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