Thesis
Keep it in one line: discourse, temporality, and selfhood in a U.S. memory care facility
Washington State University
Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
12/2015
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/103113
Abstract
Alzheimer's Disease International, the international federation of Alzheimer's associations around the world with official relations with the World Health Organization, estimates that globally, the amount of people over the age of 60 who require long-term care will increase dramatically, nearly tripling from 101 to 277 million between 2010 and 2050. Many who maintain a Western medical model of illness argue dementia is a worldwide threat in need of swift and widespread governmental and medical intervention. However, these widespread medical narratives often overlook the sociocultural context in which the U.S. has come to understand dementia and those affected by it. In the U.S., aging and memory loss threaten individual agency and ultimately the felt sense of an internal and coherent American self. This paper analyzes the historical political and medical discourses surrounding senility and aging and tracks their lived affects on the caregiving industry today using ethnographic data and interviews collected at an assisted living facility in the Pacific Northwest United States. I argue that these discourses create a hauntological paradox - between the ghost of the senile old man and neoliberal beliefs about selfhood and autonomy - in which caregivers actively define and embody good care. I further argue for the existence of multiple and partial selves in the memory care facility: what I call the fictive choosing self and the temporally situated self.
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Details
- Title
- Keep it in one line
- Creators
- Anna Lynne Jordan
- Contributors
- Jeannette Marie Mageo (Chair)Julia Cassaniti (Committee Member) - Washington State University, Anthropology, Department ofMaureen Schmitter-Edgecombe (Committee Member) - Washington State University, Psychology, Department of
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Anthropology, Department of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University; [Pullman, Washington] :
- Number of pages
- 56
- Identifiers
- 99900525154701842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis