Making the Invisible Visible: Beggary in Older Adults. Reflections on the Research Process

Abstract

The dissemination of research papers normally focuses on the theoretical and methodological aspects and the results obtained, however, the subjective aspects and the different vicissitudes remain hidden from the receiver. In the following article I intend to show the vicissitudes of the ethnographic research work entitled "Practices of Beggary in Older Adults." In the research carried out in the context of a PhD, I addressed vulnerability and socioeconomic inequality in old age, the crystallization of precariousness in the body of the elderly, the appropriation of spaces, the ways of beggary and the processes of social interaction. that are played in the practice of beggary. The reflections in this article focus on two axes of analysis: the first is centered on the subjectivity that intervenes in the research process; the second, leads to a critical analysis of training in the psychological discipline.