“Like a family”: Social relationships in senior community center
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1590/1806-9584-2024v32n191188Keywords:
family, kin, living alone, older adults, community centerAbstract
The aim is to analyze the resignified social relations "like a family" in community centers. The study is an ethnography carried out in Paysandú, Uruguay, with 84 older people who live alone and participated in individual interviews and focus groups. The narratives were analyzed using discourse analysis, metaphor analysis, and content analysis to identify meanings and practices. The results show a process of resignifying relationships among companions in terms of family relationships, whose meaning is based on the meanings and practices of the consanguineous kinship system. This resignification is carried out by older women but not men. Based on the findings, the family continues to be a strong cultural reference among these older women, which allows them to redefine relationships between strangers in terms of family.
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