쪽방을 관리하는 여성 독거노인의 쪽방촌 거주 경험과 의미

Abstract

This study aimed to explore the life experiences of the elderly women who have been taking care of shabby one-room dwellers in a shabby one-room town in which they also have been living alone. Specifically researchers were interested in what kind of meanings the elderly women gave to their own life experiences in the town. In order to explore the life experience itself as well as its meanings given by the elderly women this study employed the total ethnographic methodology that is one of many qualitative research methods. The results showed that elderly women’s life experiences in the shabby one-room town were divided by their meanings into three major categories: (a) ‘subsistence: the initial reason for flowing into the shabby one-room town, and the present reason for staying in the town’; (b) ‘relationship: being cut off, and then being built up’; and, (c) ‘alien: guarding against the outsiders as well as getting along well with insiders on the other hand, and alienation after boundary setting.’ Based on these results implications for policy, practice, and theory have been provided, which might be helpful for the elderly women who have been living alone in the shabby one-room town, as well as practitioners.