SOME OLD PEOPLE LIFE PATHS: EXPERIENCES OF AN URBAN GROUP

Abstract

Objective: to describe some perceptions about the ageing of a group of old people as presented by a research regarding their life paths in Caldas, Antioquia Colombia. Methodology: it is an ethnographical study in which observation, semi-structured and group interviews and documentary review were employed with the aim to understand the processes of social reproduction. Social universe: men and women over 60 living in the Caldas urban area, Antioquia, willing to participate and without cognitive alterations. Results: this work allowed us to discover that senior citizens acknowledge that death, pension, illness and solitude define old age and that their present situation is related with the inclusive or exclusive conditions of past and present times. Conclusions: the old people taking part in the research consider old age by negative stereotypes probably because the majority of them live in a state of vulnerability not only because of age since they suffer as well historical debts related to dismissal from employment, lack of social security, low schooling (specially in the case of women), límited economic and social state support. Those factors added to the physiological decline and the absence or social recognition help us to understand their life paths