Preserving Bangsi, Developing Selves: Situating Aging, Transcendence, and Psychosocial Support Among Women in Coastal Sarangani, Southern Philippines

Abstract

Abstract Aging is a consequential global phenomenon that invites interpretation through diverse paradigms. While much literature has been abundant on the expansive and pessimistic views of the phenomenon, there is a limited study on aging as a positive development, where an older person may experience gerotranscendence. This study aimed to explore the lived experiences, challenges, coping strategies, and support systems of aging coastal women engaged in Bangsi (flying fish) post-harvest preservation in Sarangani Province, Southern Philippines. Employing a qualitative narrative inquiry, in-depth interviews were conducted among six (6) aging coastal women, and the data were thematically analyzed. Guided by Tornstam's gerotranscendence theory and Nussbaum's capability approach, the results reveal the complex, dignified, self-transcended lives of aging women engaged in Bangsi preservation. Contrary to pessimistic views, these women embody a later-life development characterized not by decline but by expansion: self-transcendence, cosmic communion, and positive solitude. The Bangsi post-harvest fisheries, often viewed as menial, emerges as a space for existential meaning-making that enhances agency and self-worth. Within the realities of the Philippines, these women in coastal communities’ challenge deficit-based discourses of aging. They do not only adapt to their conditions; they reconstruct their roles as autonomous agents, expressing practical reason, affiliation and cognitive gratification in their everyday engagements. Their capability to choose the life they value through work, motherhood and spiritual reflection, they embody a non-Western form of “successful aging” in community-based rooted terms. Rather than passively personifying decline, these aging women navigate toward transcendence. Their lived experiences underscore the need to recognize the culturally situated capabilities and human flourishing as alternative aging pathways in Southeast Asia.

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