Ageing, Agency and Health in Urbanizing Dar es Salaam

This PhD project forms part of ongoing research on ageing, health and resilience in Africa and Asia at the Institute of Social Anthropology at the University of Basel and the Swiss Tropical Institute in Basel. Global research on ageing and health is dominated by discourses in gerontology, which privilege Western understandings of agency. The SNF project Ageing, Agency and Health in Urbanizing Tanzania emphasizes social and cultural dimensions of ageing and health. It examines Tanzanian elderly as social actors who’s lived experience of ageing and health draws on broader cultural representations and at the same time shapes and possibly even transforms them in engagement with others in specific living and caring arrangements of two main cities, Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar, which are well connected to other parts of the world. The focus of this PhD project is on older persons in Dar es Salaam, the largest and most vibrant city of Tanzania.