QUALITATIVE (ETHNOGRAPHIC) RESEARCH ON MEANING IN LIFE OF RURAL ELDERLY IN THE NETHERLANDS

摘要

This paper is an anthropological investigation and based upon in-depth interviews and thick descriptions (participant observations) collected among elderly persons in a rural orthodox protestant area (1600 citizens) in the Netherlands. Data are collected from people who are 75 or older and who are ageing in a context where families traditionally live in inter-generational households (extended families). Our findings are centred upon dimensions such as purpose, moral worth, self-worth, competence, comprehensibility, connectedness and excitement. Hence, the paper explores meaning in life of people who are embedded in a family –, religious- and village-community.