Temporality and the aging self. How subjective time is folding over its linear progression

摘要

We were interested in how the retirement transition shapes the structure of time and how these changes, in turn, affect the way people see themselves. Conceptualized as a relation between subjective time and self-concept, we theorized that it can shed more light on the heterogeneity of aging processes at the individual level. We used the narrative method to collect 14 life stories among elders with different retirement tenure. Three distinct timestructuring modes occurring as a response to the retirement transition were identified using the constructivist grounded theory methodology. However, these temporal positions tended to shift in more senior cases, mostly as a response to the contingencies of later life guided by inner functions of reflexivity. Those changes were usually not sudden, eliciting interesting problems of blended temporalities and temporal persistence, which we argue accounts for the duration of these shifts. In conclusion, we develop a conceptual understanding of self-concept in relation to the folding of subjective time and its linear progression in the individual aging process.