Philip Kao

Post-Doctoral Fellow, Medical Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh

"Independent Plus: Conceptualizations of Care in a Nursing Home"

This presentation will feature ethnographic snippets from the interactions between caregivers and residents in a Midwestern Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC).  By examining at how care is conceived of and negotiated by caregivers and residents who need assistance with some of the activities of daily living (hence the euphemistic expression ‘independent plus’), I aim to show how space and time unfold, juxtapose and conceal in an institutional setting. Elder care is often associated with routines, checklists and regimens, but what actually happens on the ground illumes the various heterotopias and constellations of care that defy simple explanation and ritualization. There is neither liminality nor transformation (of the life course), but rather something else more enigmatic and ambivalent for the anthropologist and informant.

Philip Kao

December 6^th 3:00pm

3106 WWPH Anthropology Lounge