O doce amargo sabor do envelhecimento: experiências corporais, geracionais e de gênero

Abstract

This research sought to identify and understand the reasons for the persistence of a group of seniors who participate in PVA - project for physical activity – and the consequences of that decision in the social relations of these subjects. Beyond this goal, we sought to understand the possibility of reflecting on gender, femininity and female empowerment in old age through bodily experiences. Accordingly, it was necessary to expose the generational experiences and modes of subjectivity experienced in PVA. This qualitative research is characterized as an anthropological ethnographic study that had as reference the theoretical framework of studies on social and urban anthropology. The techniques were the systematic observation of classes and events of PVA and interviews with a group of eight subjects, five students and a PVA student, as well as teacher and the intern in the project. The fieldwork took place in Uba/MG, for nine months, from March to November 2013. The motivations of older and elderly to continue in PVA are based on the reconstruction of individual projects and the construction of a collective project in old age. The ties of sociality and reciprocity are striking in that relationship. The generational experiences expose generational conflicts and mutual symbolic appropriations of generational units present in PVA. The experiences of gender make clear that PVA is a female-dominated space and the group of interlocutors demonstrates various strategies to build that space remains that way. The presence of these women in this space is constantly negotiated with their family groups, who take central symbolic value in the identity constructions of these elderly. Thus, the multiple meanings of the modes of subjectivity present in PVA points to the multiplicity and heterogeneity of the subjects experiences in old age.