Aging and Temporality of Aged in a Clan

Cho, Myung Ok

Abstract

PURPOSE: This ethnography in communication aimed to explore the changes in consciousness on time and temporality as an elderly became older. This study focused on time as a primary message systems of Edward Hall.
METHODS
The assumption of the study was that the aging body as an expression of biological time is a meta of physical, personal, and social time. Data were collected from iterative fieldwork in a clan between Jan, 1990 and April, 2007. The key informants were 13 women and men aged 70 years old or more at the beginning of study. Changes in physical time and temporality as the women's body declined in its physical function was analyzed. As the cultural context, informants' every life and the history of the clan were also analyzed.
RESULTS
The meta-time of the informants were constituted as follows: In the low-contextual dimension, physical time perceived as longer and personal time perceived as shorter than they were young; In high-contextual dimension, informant and residents had a polychronic perspective and aged-centered time perspectives.; In the supernatural dimension of time, sacred time were reinforced by rituals. Informants extended temporality to their springs' world and ancestors' world.
CONCLUSION
As the informants recognized slugged body movements and time-limited present life, their views on their life world towards the future of spring and of the sacred world of ancestors. Thereby, their identity as a member of a clan was reinforced. This result informed us on what we should focus on when caring with older women.