The Role of Atmosphere in Negotiations of Groupness: A Study of a Meeting Place for Older Russian-speaking Migrants

ABSTRACT

While existing literature on third-sector support for ageing migrants shows that social clubs can be a vital source of social support, what remains unclear is how these positive outcomes are attained on an interactional level. Drawing on fieldwork conducted over the course of one year in a meeting place for older Russian-speaking migrants in the capital region of Finland, this paper adopts a processual approach to examine how a sense of groupness is negotiated in the meeting place. The attendees of the meeting place comprise of different nationalities and backgrounds, who mainly share age and Russian language. This heterogeneity creates a situation where the attendees, together with the organisers, negotiate a sense of groupness with the category of ‘Russian-speaking’. I argue that such a sense of groupness is reached by drawing from shared traits of culturality, while excluding aspects that could cause conflicts. The paper further contributes to the literature on groupness by analysing what role atmosphere plays in attaining a sense of groupness, and argues that the notion of atmosphere is important to take into consideration when thinking how different places can support ageing and wellbeing.

KEYWORDS:

• Groupness
• atmosphere
• Russian-speaking
• older migrants
• third sector
• Finland

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Vanessa May, Antero Olakivi and Sirpa Wrede for their comments throughout the writing process. The author also wishes to thank the editors and the anonymous reviewer for suggestions that helped me finalise the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In this paper, the third sector initiative in question is a meeting place, however, other forms of third sector initiatives applicable can be social clubs or other voluntary-organised activities.

2 The median age of the attendees interviewed was 70 years and the median age of moving to Finland was 56 years.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Academy of Finland: [Grant Number #312310,#336669]; University of Helsinki.

Notes on contributors

Anastasia Asikainen

Anastasia Asikainen is a Doctoral Candidate in Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki. She is affiliated with the Centre of Excellence for Research on Ageing and Care and the Helsinki Inequality Initiative.