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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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The volunteer and the Sannyasin
— archetypes of retirement in America and India | | Author(s) | Joel Savishinsky |
| Journal title | International Journal of Aging and Human Development, vol 59, no 1, 2004 |
| Pages | pp 25-42 |
| Source | http://baywood.com |
| Keywords | Voluntary work [elderly] ; United States of America ; Spiritual characteristics [elderly] ; India ; Attitudes to the old of general public ; Comparison. |
| Annotation | Cultures differ in their models of the life course, including the number and the content of the stages through which people are expected to pass. In those societies that recognise a period of retirement, the developmental tasks and opportunities that older people face are shaped by cultural ideas about morality, spirituality, passion, and fulfilment. This article examines two archetypes for retirement: the American volunteer, and the Indian sannyasin or "renouncer". Drawing on ethnographic data from a study of American retirees and descriptions of spiritual seekers in India, it considers the social roles these ideal types play, their self and their public images, the congruence between cultural expectations and their actual experiences, and the underlying values these people embody. American volunteers view retirement as an entitlement, they also stress the obligation to use free time to pay back their society the benefits they have enjoyed - a moral dimension. India's sannyasins, however, enter a life stage of social withdrawal and spiritual pursuit after years of fulfilling their adult commitments to family and community. These archetypes of ageing thus bring out their cultures' contrasting emphases on inner- versus outer-directedness, self-development versus self-effacement, and personal freedom versus social responsibility. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-041026202 A |
| Classmark | GHH: 7T: EX: 7FA: TOB: 48 |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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