Grupos de convivência para idosos e sociabilidades: um estudo do Centro Associativo Renascer na cidade de João Neiva/ES

Abstract

This is a study that seeks to analyze the socialization processes that take place in a group of elderly people living in João Neiva, Espírito Santo (ES). This group, founded on February 25, 1994, is called the Renascer Associative Center (CEAR) and is intended to offer leisure activities for older people, with “bingo” and “forró” as their main activities. For this, we appropriate the concept of sociability developed by the German philosopher Georg Simmel (1983), author that understands that society is made up of people interacting with each other, that is, "being with each other" (whether through interactions of conflict, competition or cooperation) to satisfy their needs or purposes. These partnerships, or relations of sociability, happen mainly during leisure time, denoting the importance that socializing groups for the elderly have for their users, as in CEAR. In addition, we appropriated the concept of “piece” of anthropologist José Guilherme Cantor Magnani (2006), extending this concept to CEAR, where a strong sense of belonging was observed, sustaining a social network among users who frequent the place. Our analyzes have as main reference the data produced through the interviews with the CEAR users, also using, complementarily, the data produced during the observations, as well as the records made in the field diary From these analyzes two categories were elaborated: a) the CEAR “piece” and, b) the dynamics of the practices: sociability, tensions and codes of conduct. In the first category, we could see that CEAR is currently a predominantly female space. In addition, the institution faces financial problems, which, according to its users, contributed to the removal of some members. Moreover, another problem is that, proportionally, the number of people who frequent the place, when compared to the number of elderly residents in the municipality, is low. Regarding the second category, despite the difficulties experienced, CEAR has been developing its activities and the exchange of experiences that occur during the dynamics of the activities - disputes between groups, tensions and small conflicts - contributed immeasurably to the development of our work