Galkin K. (2020) Ontologicheskaya sborka sred stareniya [Ontological assembly of aging environments]. Zhurnal sotsiologii i sotsialnoy antropologii [The Journal of Sociology and Social Anthropology], 23(2):67–86 (in Russian).

Abstract

The article considers a new way of conceptualizing aging as a condition of people that depends on material objects and social life and differs in different environments where individuals are located. The article answers the question of how aging is created in the practices of interaction of older people with various actors, people and objects in the physical and social environment of a boarding school and when living separately. Based on an empirical study that was conducted in the Republic of Karelia in a residential home for the elderly and among elderly people living separately, both in the city and in the village, the article examines various cases and how each of the cases is the process of aging and what are the subjective meanings of aging in biographical interviews. The theoretical basis and methodology used in the study belongs to the interdisciplinary research of aging and reveals the possibilities of interdisciplinary research of aging and the application of STS optics and the material approach. The author suggests looking at aging as a process that is created and depends on two key actors — social life and material objects that create subjective meanings for understanding aging of elderly people.

Content (in russ)