Elderly and forced displacement in Colombia
Main Article Content
Objective: To describe the experiences of older adults around forced displacement due to the Colombian armed conflict.
Methods: Interpretive-comprehensive study, with a hermeneutical approach; several types of sampling were carried out. The participants were 12 people aged over 60 years, who reported having being displaced and who participated in the SABE Colombia Survey. The data were encoded using the Atlas.ti software. A process of condensation of central analytical, support and emerging categories was made.
Results: The displacement generated by the armed conflict has been decisive in the current life conditions of the participants. They know that they are survivors of someone else's violence; there is dislocation, loss of territory, de-anchoring, lack of protection and insecurity. To the stigma of old age, it is added being displaced and being strangers in a place where they don’t belong. They live the violent uprooting of their lands and the confusion of their identity; they found themselves in a foreign scene where they were the unusual and the strangers; from receiving threats, they passed to be labeled as ‘threatening’. This forced displacement stems from violence, but also from fear, and it marks the trajectory of life for older people who experience a prolonged struggle for survival in often hostile environments, living "permanently" displaced.
Conclusion: When there is displacement, older people are not only shed of their land and their home, but also from their cosmos and their vital referents; in addition, it changes their life trajectory and their place in the world. Interventions should be designed based on specific particular and contextual analyses.
- old age
- quality of life
- armed conflicts
- symbolic interactionism
- violence
- forced displacement
- aged
- life change events
- refugees
- Colombia
Downloads
- Carmen Lucía Curcio, Claudia Payan Villamizar, Abelardo Jiménez, Fernando Gómez, Abuse in Colombian elderly and its association with socioeconomic conditions and functionality , Colombia Medica: Vol. 50 No. 2 (2019): SABE Colombia
- Lena Barrera, Fernando Gómez, Delia Ortega Lenis, Jairo Corchuelo Ojeda, Fabián Méndez, Prevalence, awareness, treatment and control of high blood pressure in the elderly according to the ethnic group. Colombian survey , Colombia Medica: Vol. 50 No. 2 (2019): SABE Colombia
- José Mauricio Ocampo, José Arnoby Chacón, José Fernando Gómez, Carmen Lucía Curcio, Francisco Javier Tamayo, Adverse drug reactions and adverse drug events in elderly patients consulting a hospital emergency unit. , Colombia Medica: Vol. 39 No. 2 (2008)
- José Fernando Gómez, Carmen Lucía Curcio, John Ericson Orjuela, John Jairo Ramírez, Envejecimiento en comunidades campesinas: proyecto envejecer en el campo. , Colombia Medica: Vol. 29 No. 4 (1998)
- Carmen Lucía Curcio, José Fernando Gómez, Angélica García, Caídas y capacidad funcional entre ancianos colombianos que realizan y no realizan ejercicio. , Colombia Medica: Vol. 29 No. 4 (1998)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
The copy rights of the articles published in Colombia Médica belong to the Universidad del Valle. The contents of the articles that appear in the Journal are exclusively the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Editorial Committee of the Journal. It is allowed to reproduce the material published in Colombia Médica without prior authorization for non-commercial use