engleski

“Some Days are Better than Others”: Older Persons and Everyday Life in an Institutional Setting

The term “everyday life” is very flexible, even ambivalent, but extremely important for sociologists (Bennett 2005). The domain of “trivial” and “banal” things, academically neglected and theoretically downplayed for a long time, has in recent decades become an inspirational field of sociological interest, and thus Sztompka (2008) has referred to this “focus on everyday life” as a “new turn in sociology.” Everyday life always takes place in a specific social context as well as a localized area (Sztompka 2008). The key question in this paper is: What does everyday life in a home for older persons look like for its residents? This is a research question that intersects different dimensions, categories, and aspects. Homes for older persons are a “very special place” (Backhaus 2009), that is, complex social universes with stratified and often contradictory meanings immersed in networks of rules, codes, norms, and expectations. As institutions strongly defined by the categories of age and gender, they are social sites where older persons are not merely passive observers (Somera 1997), but autonomous agents who create their daily existence by themselves. What does their daily schedule look like? What do they do and what meanings do these daily activities have for them? These are just some of the questions that we are addressing here. The presentation is based on an analysis of interviews with residents of the Home for Older Persons Maksimir in Zagreb. Research is based on qualitative methodology, with an emphasis on the voice of the silent generation (+80).

everyday life ; institutional ageing ; qualitative methodology

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