A construção social de finitude da vida através dos significados do mundo vivido e não vivido

Abstract

The 21st century reserves a change in the world population profile, we will have more people over 60 years of age, the proportion of the population "older", that is, more than 80 years of the Brazilian population, is also increasing. This "older" contingent needs, daily, care and assistance to carry out the activities of daily living - ADLs. Part of this long-lived population are consecrated religious who dedicated their lives to God from a religious congregation and thus depend on the structure of the congregation to live this period of the Life Cycle described as finitude. The general objective of this research was to understand the social construction of finitude of life through the meanings of the world lived and not lived by the Marist Brothers in the perspective of understanding the finite phase of the life cycle, starting from the construction, a posteriori, of emerging categories of the Process articulated with the great themes of the formation of consecrated life: Communion with Nature, Communion with others, Communion with oneself and Communion with God. The approach of this research is qualitative, and it follows the ethnographic technique, based on the records systematized from the field journals, ethnographic interview, photos and filming performed from September 2012 to December 2013, of the Project developed by the Pro-Rectory of Extension - PROEX / PUCRS, for the residents of Casa São José de Viamão. The research took as reference the method of analysis of Husserl's Transcendental Phenomenology, which may be aimed at understanding the process of social construction of the world lived and not lived by the Marist Brothers, characterizing it as an interdisciplinary project. The study included 13 Marist Brothers, aged between 76 and 94, and 50 and 74 years of Consecrated Life. The analysis of ethnographic records indicated that the biological, psychological and social aspects of this period of life described as finitude of the participants portray the meanings of life constructed from Marist values, and are overcome in particular by the constitution and preservation of Faith lived , Permeated by the vicissitudes of the aging process.