Health programmes that offer ›help to self-help‹ are meant to empower ageing adults to remain independent and self-sufficient at home for as long as possible. But what happens when the private home becomes a political realm in which state intervention and individual agency happen simultaneously? Based on 15 months of ethnographic fieldwork in a Danish municipality, Amy Clotworthy describes how both health professionals and elderly citizens negotiate the political discourses about health and ageing that frame their relational encounter. By elucidating some of the conflicts, paradoxes, and negotiations that occur, she provides important insights into the contemporary organisation of eldercare.
Price: $50.00
Pages: 262
Publisher: transcript publishing
Imprint: transcript publishing
Series: Aging Studies
Publication Date:
27 July 2020
Trim Size: 8.86 X 5.83 in
ISBN: 9783837652116
Format: Paperback
BISACs:
SOCIAL SCIENCE / Gerontology, MEDICAL / Nursing / Research & Theory, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Popular Culture
Amy Clotworthy holds a Ph.D. in ethnology and a Master's degree in applied cultural analysis, both from the University of Copenhagen. In her position at the interdisciplinary Center for Healthy Aging (CEHA), she teaches and conducts research on how health and social policies targeting older people influence the sociocultural dynamics of later life. With an emphasis on everyday health practices, her research also investigates how the Danish healthcare sector, hospitals, and municipal authorities can improve professional practices by recognising the complexity of older people's life histories as well as the individual needs and priorities they express in their personal narratives.
Frontmatter 1
Contents 5
Abstract 9
Acknowledgements 11
Preface 13
Introduction 17
1 From help to self-help: the transformation of eldercare in Denmark 41
2 'Following the rhetoric' in a Danish municipality 63
Introduction 97
3 Evaluating the body's need for help 99
4 Embodying potential 115
Summary 129
Introduction 133
5 Navigating public/private divisions 135
6 Stabilising the home to promote 'ageing in place' 147
Summary 165
Introduction 169
7 Offering free choice and empowerment 173
8 Producing a 'shared responsibility' for care 187
Summary 201
9 CONCLUSION: Transforming eldercare in Denmark 203
Afterword 219
Bibliography 225
Overview of key informants 243
Declaration of confidentiality for the municipality (Tavshedserklæring til kommunen) 247
Criminal record (straffeattest) 249
Informeret samtykke - kommunale personale 253
Informed consent - municipal personnel 255
Informeret samtykke - borgere 257
Informed consent - citizens 259
