Ageing and Care
Changing Realities, Institutions and Discourses
Conference at Roskilde University
24.th of may 9.00-16.30
We invite you to Roskilde University to share and discuss research under this theme, in order to create fruitful connections between our knowledge about the elderly and ageing, and the care givers, institutions and care regimes. In the everyday life of the elderly and in discourse these two perspectives seem to influence and condition each other. To inspire us we have invited two guest lecturers
Mary Ellen Purkis, Professor at Victoria University (Canada):
The Historical Implications of Measuring Caregiver Burden
The social concept of “caregiver burden" is to this day measured using increasingly complex techniques and calculations, motivated by an interest to "relieve or reduce" this burden and thus improving the quality of life of caregivers. Twenty years later, such ambitious aims are acknowledged to remain unmet. If the goal of relieving the burden from caregivers has failed, what might be the implications of these research activities? An argument will be presented that a calculation of the weight that family members will bear in relation to care of elderly relations has surpassed the interest in finding methods to relieve that burden. Epistemological justifications for the on-going pursuit of research into caregiver burden will be unearthed and examined.
Jaber F. Gubrium, Professor at University of Missouri, Columbia (USA):
STORIES AND STORYTELLING IN AGEING AND CARE.
Stories and life accounts are increasingly popular in research on ageing and care. They document the subjective complexity of experience. But this commonly elides the contexts of storytelling. Professor Gubrium will present narrative material to illustrate how stories relate to occasions of storytelling, and comment on the importance of applying ethnographic sensibilities.