"I'm Old and I'm Proud!" Dance, Music, and the Formation of Cultural Identity among Pensioners in Sweden.

This article addresses the organisation of this growing social and cultural diversity in Sweden and the expressive forms through which it is publicly dramatised. To be more exact, the article deals with the role of dance and music in the formation of anew and powerful social and cultural category in Sweden: the retired or the'pensioners'. I argue that the expressive forms which pensioners use to create asense of togetherness and to become recognised as a cultural category in Swedishsociety, are basically the same as those which many ethnic groups have been usingfor a long time for the same purposes. By claiming "we are different, we have our own culture", and by using the same kinds of typified music, dance, folk costume,food, etc., as ethnic groups do to display their differences publicly, the pensionersbecome a sort of ethnic group. I refer to this as a process of ethnification. As a result, pensioners become more visible in society, strengthen their social andcultural identity, and increase their status and power at some levels in Swedish society. But at the same time they may also find themselves marginalized and demoted to a secondary level in the society as a whole, a level where mostimmigrants and other types of 'foreigners' in Swedish society are to be found.