Spännäri Jenni, Laceulle Hanne
School of Theology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland.
Humanism and Social Resilience, University of Humanistic Studies, Utrecht, Netherlands.
Front Psychol. 2021 Aug 18;12:707060. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.707060. eCollection 2021.
Meaning in life has also been seen as crucial to well-being, and especially, in later life. This study focused on the social complexity of meaning making processes and the role of religion and spirituality in them, by finding out the following: (1) How are meaning-making practices connected with religion and spirituality for Finnish retirement migrants of the boomer generation? (2) What does the role of religion and spirituality in meaning-making practices teach us about the relationship between individual and social aspects of meaning making? This was done by examining a particular group of older persons: Finnish retirement migrants aged 60 or over in Costa del Sol, Spain. The material for this study consists of 58 texts (written correspondence, dataset 1, year 2009), 10 semi-structured interviews (dataset 2, year 2011), and 30 completed online surveys with open-ended questions (dataset 3, year 2019). Key findings include that religion and spirituality are present in the lives of our informants in a variety of ways, playing a significant role in their meaning making, and that they appear as intertwined and not so easy to separate. A variety of religious and non-religious forms of spirituality exist in this population, and all of these forms can be relevant factors in meaning making. Also, the engagement in meaning making, contrary to what has been suggested in some of the literature about meaning in later life, not only occurs in response to confrontations with health issues, death, or other major life events. Instead, we found that meaning making occurs as a process that is often inherent to daily activities which may seem "trivial," but in fact turn out to be important sources of purpose, values, and connectedness. Contrary to the dominant modern ideal of the authentic, self-sufficient human agent, which is based on a problematically atomistic and individualistic anthropology, for our respondents, their authentic subject position is embedded in the social practices of their daily lives, which nourish their individual spirituality and are vital to making meaning.
人生意义也被视为幸福的关键，尤其是在晚年。本研究聚焦于意义构建过程的社会复杂性以及宗教和灵性在其中的作用，具体通过以下方式展开：（1）对于婴儿潮一代的芬兰退休移民而言，意义构建实践与宗教和灵性是如何联系的？（2）宗教和灵性在意义构建实践中的作用能让我们了解到意义构建的个人层面与社会层面之间的何种关系？这是通过研究特定的老年人群体来实现的：居住在西班牙太阳海岸的60岁及以上的芬兰退休移民。本研究的材料包括58篇文本（书面通信，数据集1，2009年）、10次半结构化访谈（数据集2，2011年）以及30份完成的开放式在线调查问卷（数据集3，2019年）。主要研究结果包括：宗教和灵性以多种方式存在于我们受访者的生活中，在他们的意义构建中发挥着重要作用，并且它们呈现出相互交织的状态，不太容易区分。在这一群体中存在着各种宗教和非宗教形式的灵性，所有这些形式都可能是意义构建中的相关因素。此外，与一些关于晚年意义的文献中所提出的观点相反，意义构建并非仅在面对健康问题、死亡或其他重大生活事件时才会发生。相反，我们发现意义构建是一个日常活动中常常固有的过程，这些日常活动看似“琐碎”，但实际上却是目标、价值观和联系感的重要来源。与基于有问题的原子主义和个人主义人类学的现代主流真实、自给自足的人类主体理想相反，对于我们的受访者来说，他们真实的主体地位嵌入在日常生活的社会实践中，这些实践滋养了他们的个人灵性，对于意义构建至关重要。
