This thesis aims to gain a greater understanding of the social, material and historical processes underlying physical activity participation in the lived experiences of people with type-2 diabetes in Urban Nigeria. Using social practice theory and life-course perspective as guiding theoretical frameworks, a qualitative narrative inquiry was conducted with thirty-five people with type-2 diabetes receiving outpatient care at the University College Hospital Ibadan, Oyo state, Nigeria. Through a multi-modal research design, data were collected in three phases: Firstly, a narrative interview study was conducted to obtain biographical accounts of how people’s relationship with physical activity has evolved over their life course. Secondly, participants took part in a one-week activity tracking and diary study to capture their daily life patterns of activity. Thirdly, the diary study was followed up with a visual elicitation interview co-explore their captured data to gain deeper access to the context of their daily lives and how physical activity fits within this context. Additionally, an informal contextual inquiry involving observations and discussions with healthcare professionals was conducted to help build a bigger picture of the context in which people lived.

Four separate analyses of the research data were performed. The first involved a case-based narrative analysis of six of the thirty-five participants’ data to understand the nuances and peculiarities of their individual lived experiences. This was followed by a cluster analysis of participants’ daily activities to identify groups of participants with similar patterns of activities. The third included a thematic analysis of participants’ experiences of physical activity over the life course. Lastly, a separate thematic analysis was conducted to understand participants’ knowledge about physical activity as part of their type-2 diabetes management.
The cluster analysis of people with type-2 diabetes’ daily activities identified six participant sub-groups, with members of each group having similar patterns of activities. Physical activity patterns also varied across the life course and were strongly implicated in processes including changing social roles within the family life trajectory, transitions to retirement, ageing, type-2 diabetes diagnosis, gender norms, absence of an exercise culture, and negative age stereotypes.

The research makes three contributions. Firstly, it makes an empirical contribution by providing an in-depth multi-layered account of the socio-historical dynamics of physical activity in the lived experiences of people with type-2 diabetes in an urban Nigerian context. Secondly, the research offers a methodological contribution by demonstrating how combining SPT with concepts from life-course perspectives can facilitate a relational and temporal approach to exploring the lived experiences of physical activity in people with Type-2 diabetes in Urban Nigeria. Thirdly, the research findings contribute to the growing theoretical debates that physical activity engagement is not a static or linear behaviour but a dynamic, ongoing process of change that encompasses an interplay of transitions, turning points, and social interactions in people’s lives.