Ageing with place: examining the relationship between ageing and therapeutic landscape among mid-life women in rural Sweden, Ireland and Scotland

Herbert, Alison. (2025). Ageing with place: examining the relationship between ageing and therapeutic landscape among mid-life women in rural Sweden, Ireland and Scotland. Journal of Global Ageing, 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1332/29767202y2025d000000038

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between the natural environment as therapeutic landscape and the ageing of mid-life rural women. The concept of ageing ‘with’ or ‘alongside’ place has received less academic attention than that of ageing ‘in place’ within the homeplace or locality, but is equally worthy of further exploration. Three distinct studies over separate time periods during 2013–21 were conducted within selected rural areas of Sweden, Ireland and Scotland to explore the relationship between the natural environment, its therapeutic qualities and the ageing of mid-life women. Qualitative data from one-to-one in-person interviews were gathered and analysed from a lifecourse perspective and informed by constructivist grounded theory. Findings from these three studies extend existing narratives on the relationship between perspectives on ageing and the natural therapeutic environment. While the research sites of these studies are all rural, nuanced geo-socio-demographic differences exist that produce deep participant diversity on ageing and the natural environment as therapeutic landscape. Overall, the natural environment was perceived as a positive, therapeutic contributor to ageing, but from different perspectives, for which three descriptors have been created. The 10 participants in Värmland, Sweden, viewed therapeutic landscape from a ‘utilitarian’ perspective; the 25 participants in Connemara, Ireland, viewed it from a ‘pragmatic’ perspective; and the 12 participants in the Outer Hebridean islands, Scotland, viewed it from an ‘aesthetic’ perspective. Such diversity of perspective is important to note as it suggests that mid-life rural women use their environments differently and follow culturally heterogeneous pathways toward ageing.

Funder

Royal Irish Academy

Publisher

Bristol University Press and Policy Press

Rights

CC BY-NC-ND

cbn

Collections

Irish Centre for Social Gerontology (Scholarly Articles)