Retrospektiva normaliserande praktiker: en studie kring motstånd och normalisering i framställningar av den fjärde åldern.

This thesis is a feminist analysis of documentary and biographic images and stories of old age, focusing on axes of social differences, normalization and the consequences of inhabiting the position of deviation. Through a theoretical framework consisting of intersectional feminist theory and theories on normalization and a methodological framework consisting of discourse theory and semiotics of images, three different empirical material containing images and stories of people in old age is analysed. A central conclusion is that people in old age is defined by their past. This is something that is repeated in the material in various ways but in certain patterns. Proper advanced age is done by negating normative narratives of gendered adulthood characterized by able-bodiedness, productive- and reproductive work and "Swedishness". The author highlights examples from the material showing in different ways how the inability to live up to the retrospective "normat" is followed by symbolic and material punishment