"I am the way I am, and I don't want to lose that" : Russian immigrant women's narratives of beauty work, immigration and aging

This study examined the beauty work practices of Russian immigrant women and their understandings of beauty and femininity in later life. The research was guided by the following questions: (1) What are the beauty practices of older Russian immigrant women living in Canada?; (2) Why do older Russian immigrant women pursue these practices?; and (3) How are older Russian immigrant women’s beauty practices shaped by their social locations as immigrants, Canadian residents, former citizens of the former Soviet Union, and women? The study utilized data from in-depth qualitative interviews with 10 immigrant women from the former Soviet Union. The women ranged in age from 52 to 75 (average age of 61) and had immigrated to Canada between 1992 and 2004. The majority of the women were well-educated, married, able-bodied, and self-identified as heterosexual, but differed in terms of their socioeconomic status and country of origin within the USSR. Each woman was interviewed twice for a total of 19.8 interview hours. The majority of the interviews were conducted in a mix of Russian and English, and later translated into English. The data was analyzed using Strauss and Corbin’s (1998) concepts of open and axial coding. To date, research has shown that North American, white, middle-class women frequently engage in beauty work due to the repercussions of their non-compliance with feminine beauty ideals to their vocational success, heterosexual partnerships, and social acceptance. My findings revealed that similar to white North American women, older Russian immigrant women held negative attitudes towards their bodies, and engaged in a variety of beauty practices to conceal and correct their bodies’ deviations from the slim and youthful beauty ideal. These beauty practices included skin care, non-surgical cosmetic procedures, makeup, hair care, fashion,dieting, and exercise. The women’s beauty work choices were framed by their socialization within Russian cultural values that privileged conventional gender roles and feminine appearance, their assimilation into Canadian culture, their resistance to Canadian views of beauty and femininity, and their feelings about their aging bodies. I discuss these findings in relation to the extant research and theorizing regarding beauty work and aging.Education, Faculty ofKinesiology, School ofGraduat

"It's not that I can't walk" : older adults' experiences of using canes and walkers

Despite the high prevalence of walking difficulties and widespread use of walking aids in later life, to date, there has been minimal scholarly interest in the study of canes and walkers. Building on the existing literatures in rehabilitation, social gerontology, and geographies of disability, the present study aimed to gain a fuller understanding of older men’s and women’s perceptions and embodied experiences of having walking difficulties and using a cane or a walker. The study was informed by an interpretive approach grounded in feminist disability theory, and was guided by the following research questions: 1. How do older men and women perceive and experience having walking restrictions in later life? 2. How do older men and women perceive and experience the use of a cane or a walker in their everyday lives? 3. How does the social and environmental context of mobility shape individuals’ use of canes and walkers in later life? Using a qualitative descriptive method, I conducted a combination of sit-down and walk-along interviews with six male and 18 female cane and walker users aged 67 to 98. The men and women each took part in two sit-down interviews, during which I asked them to discuss what it was like to have walking limitations and to regularly use a walking aid. In addition, participants completed one walk-along interview, during which I accompanied them on an outing to a location of their choosing. In the findings, I discuss the men’s and women’s embodied experiences of having walking limitations and utilizing canes and walkers in the context of the ableist, ageist, and gendered organization of everyday life. In particular, the findings examine the social and spatial practices that organize older adults’ use of their canes and walkers; the cultural meanings attributed to canes and walkers in later life; how these meanings are shaped by the embodied experience of aging and impairment; and how in turn, the use of walking aids may inform older adults’ views of their bodies and identities.Education, Faculty ofKinesiology, School ofGraduat

Estimation of Seawater Hydrophysical Characteristics from Thermistor Strings and CTD Data in the Sea of Japan Shelf Zone

The knowledge of salinity in a specific sea area with high accuracy is required to solve several acoustic and hydrophysical problems on the ocean shelf. Unlike temperature, which can be measured continuously for a long time, with, for example, thermistor strings (thermostrings), salinity values of required accuracy can be obtained only using CTD profiling. This is why methods of estimating salinity from temperature could be helpful. In this paper, the authors propose using the regression method for solving this type of problem and demonstrate the efficiency of this method using examples of temperature measurements from anchored thermostrings. For the correct construction of regressions, the authors analyzed the errors of CTD measurements and suggested a method for the dynamic correction of raw CTD data. From CTD profiling datasets of 12 years (2011–2022), after their dynamic correction, the authors obtained regression polynomial formulas for calculating salinity from temperature and studied data stability in space and time at the hydrophysical test site, located in the shelf zone of the Sea of Japan. The authors consider this method efficient and applicable in solving a variety of acoustic and hydrophysical problems