Significados Do Lazer Na Terceira Idade: Um Estudo Interpretativo De Grupos De Seresta E Dança De Salão

Abstract

This study investigates the meanings of leisure for the elderly people who attend a musical encounter and a ballroom dancing class. Specifically, the study investigates these consumers" experience of leisure group activities; and how they extract meaning from these experiences and from the social relationships that occur in these social spaces of leisure. In the context of this research, consumption is not seen only by its utilitarian nature, but it is rather understood in its symbolic aspects, as consumers create meanings in order to express their values, lifestyles, categories, social identities, and collective projects. By focusing on the symbolic dimension of consumption from the marketing perspective, this study is positioned as part of a line of research in marketing known as CCT -Consumer Culture Theory. In this context, this thesis is affiliated to the interpretive paradigm, departing from the subjective aspects of consumption to understand the dynamic relationships between the consumers" actions and the social and cultural meanings created. Methods of ethnographic inspiration -participant observation and indepth interviews -were used to conduct this study. These methods permitted to be part of the leisure experience lived by the elderly as a means of understanding the meanings attributed to the experience. Fieldwork included two groups of elderly people. The first group is a musical encounter group called Seresta. Participant observation covered a six-month period; 15 elderly participants were interviewed in-depth, plus the founder and leader of the group. The second group included the elderly that participated in ballroom dancing classes. Again, participant observation lasted for six months and in-depth interviews were conducted with 16 participants. Fieldnotes and transcripts of the interviews together permitted to extract the meanings assigned by older people to these leisure activities. First, each activity was analyzed separately. For each group, meanings emerged from the analyses. Then a cross-group analysis was performed. The results showed that,