Material memoirs on the journey of life: an exploration of the self in later life through personal possessions

This dissertation examines the lived experience of ageing through three emerging topics and uses time as a framework through which the analysis is conducted. First, participants’ use of symbolic objects to shape their identities in relation to their past will be examined. Second, it will be shown how participants use functional objects to perform their identities in the present.

Finally, the future time perspective of participants and its impact in their experience of ageing will be explored. Through these three topics, an interpretation of the lived experience of ageing will be carried out by describing participants’ internal and external connections, and their relationship with the three dimensions of time (past, present and future). The thesis makes a contribution to humanistic gerontology, which aims to discover the meaning of living a long life.