O que você está fazendo aqui? uma etnografia sobre as narrativas de pessoas com 60 anos de idade ou mais estudantes de graduação da UFG e seus agenciamentos

Abstract

This thesis presents the analyses of an ethnography carried out between 2022 and 2023 on narratives of university and life experiences of a selected group of eleven students aged sixty or over from some of the undergraduate courses at the Federal University of Goiás - UFG, in Goiânia-GO. Its general objective is to analyze possible negotiations and arrangements experienced by my interlocutors in their undergraduate courses, particularly with regard to potential and possible transformations in the meanings that they may attribute to their old age. From a methodological point of view, a qualitative approach was used, involving bibliographic review, production of a field diary, application of a prior survey, conducting semi-structured interviews mediated over the internet through the Google Meet online meeting platform, and anthropological analysis of the narratives collected in the field. In terms of the conclusions of this ethnography, the analyses of the interlocutors’ narratives suggest that they, through their arrangements in the courses they are taking or have taken, deal with some social markers intersected with age in an academic environment that is still, historically and institutionally, centered on youth. They also propose that they attribute importance to having entered the University in their old age, in addition to considering that their university experiences are successful, both in terms of learning and aggregated knowledge, and in the personal meanings of their lives. It was relevant to understand the ways in which their arrangements materialize in the specific ethnographic context in which I was inserted and, consequently, how they construct and attribute, in a practical way, alternative meanings to their old age beyond the realities of their work, their retirements and the relationships they maintain with their families. Thus, old age seems to become, for them, a time when one can return to studying for the second or third time, or even finally complete the long-awaited degree that culminates an educational trajectory that was postponed and waiting in youth. In this sense, if old age in the generations of the parents and grandparents of my interlocutors was conceived, in general terms, as a time to retire and “disengage”, to a certain extent, from social life, and then take care of grandchildren, attend groups for the elderly, rest, take care of their health, travel, among other activities, my interlocutors seem to take, often and simultaneously, alternative paths to those of their predecessors, namely studying and opening, thus proposing, new engagements, projects and possibilities for their lives.