No abstract

The study discussed in this article sheds light on how a specific publichealth policy, the preventive home visit (PHV) aimed at senior citizens, is implemented at the local level in Denmark. Empirically the article calls attention to what is actually going on in a preventive practice, based on participant observations, interviews and ten years' worth of visitation records.1 Theoretically, the article applies a Foucauldian biopolitical approach that understands the visits as an implementation of the active ageing scheme, as the notion of prevention is practised as a continuous process, which is utilised to train people's gazes and sensitivity, and teach them to recognise ''activity'' as closely linked to future well-being and longevity. An important finding is that the intervention is not normalising *Lene Otto, Department of Ethnology and Center for Healthy Ageing, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark 1 The study is part of the work done by the research group ''Health in Everyday Life Á HEL''. This group explores the impact of activity-focused goals on midlife and elderly citizens in various preventive and health-promotion arenas, as well as the ways in which these become domesticated in the lives of the elderly. The group is part of the Centre for Healthy Ageing (CEHA) at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. As a group, we combine ethnographic fieldwork, historical analysis and readings of policy texts in order to uncover the intertwinement of cultural practices, narratives, discourses and experiences.International Journal of Ageing and Later Life, Advance access, 2013 # The Author doi: 10.3384/ijal. 1652-8670.11168 1 in a deterministic way but rather negotiable. Even though the home visitors represent a health regimen where activity is interpreted as bodily exercise, they try to avoid the tendency to prescribe for older people. Rather than prevention in the strict sense, it seems to be a health promotion strategy that encourages older people to articulate their needs. The meeting between the health visitor and the older person is characterised by conversations and negotiations about health, autonomy and bodily experiences.

Maend og Madartikulering af kroppen i borgerrettet sundhedsfremme. Sunde vaner, vaegttab Udgangspunktet for denne artikel er et sådant kommunalt organiseret livsstilskursus for en gruppe overvaegtige maend, som tager kampen op med -og mod -deres egen krop for sundhedens, udseendets og velvaerets skyld. På kurset laerer de mandlige deltagere at forholde sig til deres krop som et objekt, der skal opdrages og disciplineres, men samtidig undervises de også i at sanse og fornemme kroppen. I artiklen argumenterer vi for, at der sker en konstant vekselvirkning mellem forskellige objektiviserings-og subjektiviseringsprocesser både fra underviserens og fra maendenes side, og at det netop er dette sammenspil imellem kroppen som objekt og deltagerne som subjekt, der er med til at realisere den enkelte deltagers forsøg på at leve sundere. 11En af bevaeggrundene for den stigende interesse for maends sundhed og involveringen af forskellige aktører er erfaringen om, at de traditionelle sundhedsbudskaber og kampagner ikke har appelleret til maend i samme omfang som til kvinder, og det antages, at det bl.a. er derfor, der er en kønsforskel i middellevetiden.

The narrative exhibition There is an essential distinction in cultural-historic museums concerning the orientation of exhibitions toward objects or toward concepts. The former emanare from things, a good collection, put on display for the public. The latter proceed from an idea or a story that is told to the public. This article deals with the narrative conceptual orientation, illustated by the exhibition «Livshistorie» [Lifestory/ Lifehistory) presented by the National Museum of Denmark.

The article is approaching the sensory and the material, memory and private reminiscence, objects and time from the perspective of ethnology. It is an attempt to provide an understanding of the relation between people and objects in a biographical perspective. It is argued that the act of keeping and saving is a kind of technology of the self. Biographical objects, because of their materiality and sensory qualities constitute our picture of our own past, stimulate remembering, store information beyond individual experience, and are instrumental to the formation of consciousness and identity. Biographical collections are the result of saving, not just casual keeping of objects connected with a person’s own life history. Thus, they are material life stories.