CULTURAL ACTIVITY OF OLDER PEOPLE – BETWEEN AUTOTELICITY AND INSTRUMENTALITY

Abstract

The article addresses the issue of the autotelic and instrumental function of the cultural activity of seniors. In reference to the literature, the author points out that autotelicity is a definitional feature of practices in the field of symbolic culture. She presents the results of a secondary analysis of data obtained in empirical research on the cultural activity of older people. This includes in-depth individual interviews, focused on questions about seniors’ approaches to cultural activity (meaning of cultural activity); about whether they are oriented autotelically or rather instrumentally and about the rank of the instrumental functions in distinguished approaches. The analysis reconstructed seven types of senior participants who attributed to their cultural activity different meanings which were located in between the poles of autotelicity and instrumentality.