Features of everyday life of older people in Karelian villages during the coronavirus restrictions

Abstract

The article presents research into the peculiarities of life of older people in rural areas during the COVID-19 pandemic. In total, there were conducted 20 interviews and collected 15 observation diaries of older people living in rural areas in peripheral settlements of the Republic of Karelia. The study examines the isolation of older people and the peculiarities of isolation of older people who live in rural areas; the effects that social exclusion of older people living in rural areas creates; the possible ways of adaptation that could minimize this social exclusion. The article contributes to the emerging research into the peculiarities of understanding aging in the context of forced social exclusion caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. A thematic method was used in the analysis of interviews and observation diaries of older people. The paper identifies various fears and peculiarities of the perception of the lonely state associated with changes in habitual everyday life due to isolation, as well as sensations related to the informants’ perception of their body as excluded from previous life and as an invisible body confined in the space where self-isolation occurs. The research also analyzes the role of bodies and the features of restrictions that the COVID-19 pandemic creates for the elderly in the context of bodily restrictions and studies how self-isolation and various fears are associated with the bodily restrictions of older people.