ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on of how individuals and groups use and understand the concept of participation. It then addresses the relationship and tensions between everyday use and alternative understandings of the concept. The chapter utilizes the story of Linda as a resource to exemplify our reasoning. The story emerges from narratives collected in a research study about aging and life projects conducted in Sweden. By exploring Linda's story in relation to participation, salient issues about the concept is situated and interpreted with theory. Phenomenology based on Husserl's reasoning on the life world has had a great influence in how meaning has been understood in healthcare practices. Linda's story follows known storylines in everyday culture on how life emerges in a Western cultural context, such as her struggle to combine her professional life and family, as well as how emerging migration issues impact on her participation.
