Professional judgements of risk and capacity in situations of self-neglect among older people

2010 ◽  
Vol 30 (6) ◽  
pp. 1055-1072 ◽  
Author(s):  
SHANNON MCDERMOTT
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Older People ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Sociological Theory ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Medical Illness ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Professional Intervention ◽  
Sydney Australia

ABSTRACTOver the past 50 years, self-neglect among older people has been conceptualised in both social policy and the academy as a social problem which is defined in relation to medical illness and requires professional intervention. Few authors, however, have analysed the concept of self-neglect in relation to critical sociological theory. This is problematic because professional judgements, which provide the impetus for intervention, are inherently influenced by the social and cultural context. The purpose of this article is to use critical theory as a framework for interpreting the findings from a qualitative study which explored judgements in relation to older people in situations of self-neglect made by professionals. Two types of data were collected. There were 125 hours of observations at meetings and home assessments conducted by professionals associated with the Community Options Programme in Sydney, Australia, and 18 professionals who worked with self-neglecting older people in the community gave in-depth qualitative interviews. The findings show that professional judgements of self-neglect focus on risk and capacity, and that these perceptions influence when and how interventions occur. The assumptions upon which professional judgements are based are then further analysed in relation to critical theory.

scholarly journals Srebrenica is not a Metaphor

2021 ◽  
pp. 54-64
Author(s):  
Sarina Bakić
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Bosnia And Herzegovina ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Sociological Theory ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Future ◽  
Temporal Dimensions ◽  
Further Development

The author will emphasize the importance of both the existence and the further development of the Srebrenica - Potočari Memorial Center, in the context of the continued need to understand the genocide that took place in and around Srebrenica, from the aspect of building a culture of remembrance throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H). This is necessary in order to continue fighting the ongoing genocide denial. At first glance, a culture of remembrance presupposes immobility and focus on the past to some, but it is essentially dynamic, and connects three temporal dimensions: it evokes the present, refers to the past but always deliberates over the future. In this paper, the emphasis is placed on the concept of the place of remembrance, the lieu de memoire as introduced by the historian Pierre Nora. In this sense, a place of remembrance such as the Srebrenica - Potočari Memorial Center is an expression of a process in which people are no longer just immersed in their past but read and analyze it in the present. Furthermore, looking to the future, they also become mediators of relations between people and communities, which in sociological theory is an important issue of social relations. The author of this paper emphasizes that collective memory in the specific case of genocide in and around Srebrenica is only possible when the social relations around the building (Srebrenica - Potočari Memorial Center) crystallize, which is then much more than just the content of the culture of remembrance.

scholarly journals School Choice Research and Politics with Pierre Bourdieu: New Possibilities

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 193-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ee-Seul Yoon
Keyword(s):  
School Choice ◽  
Social Inequality ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Sociological Theory ◽  
Politics Of Education ◽  
Conceptual System ◽  
Choice Functions ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Education Association

Various sociological perspectives have been applied to facilitate school choice research over the past two decades, as showcased in this 2020 Yearbook of Politics of Education Association. Among them, Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts and theories stand out as a catalyst for the field’s sociological development. My first objective in this article is, thus, to assess the contributions of Bourdieu’s sociological theory to school choice scholarship to date. I review the established and emerging research studies to highlight the significance of Bourdieu’s conceptual system in illuminating the social dynamics of school choice. My second objective in this article is to discuss how Bourdieu’s geographical concerns and concepts have been underutilized in the field. Ultimately, I argue that Bourdieu’s sociospatial concepts can unlock new areas of research and politics by elucidating why and how school choice functions as a mechanism that accentuates social inequality, which is reproduced geographically.

Continuity, change and possibility in older age: Identity and ageing-as-discovery

2018 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 178-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peta S. Cook
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Older People ◽  
Social Integration ◽  
Older Age ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
Age Identity ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Medical Discourses ◽  
Active Exploration

Traditionally, sociology has framed older age as a time of disengagement, withdrawal and reduced social integration. While now largely dismissed in contemporary sociological understandings of ageing, narratives of decline still feature heavily across social, media, and medical discourses. This negativity towards ageing could be at odds with how older people experience their age and identity. In this article, I will explore how 16 older people construct their self-identity. Drawing on participant-generated imagery and interview data, this article exposes that they experience older age as a time of continuity, discovery, possibility and change, where identity is multiple and fluid, and emerges through the links they make between the past, present and future. Thus, while ageing is not without its difficulties, the research participants challenge the social myths that reductively and negatively frame older age by constructing an identity that builds on their past through an active exploration of new possibilities and experiences.

Yahweh and His Clio: Critical Theory and the Historical Criticism of the Hebrew Bible

2006 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. D. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Social World ◽  
Historical Criticism ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Ancient Israel ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Impact

Discussion about the reconstruction of the history of ancient Israel seldom interacts with theoretical literature on the nature of history. Modern attempts to write Israel’s history, however, have been shaped by their theoretical underpinnings for the past two centuries. This essay explores the epistemological underpinnings of the historical criticism of the Hebrew Bible, outlines trends in historiographical theory, and assesses the impact newer theories of intellectual cultural history can have on studies of the history of the social world of ancient Israel.

scholarly journals Retirement Migration and Precarity: Material and Social Aspects

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 443-444
Author(s):  
Marion Repetti ◽  
Toni Calasanti
Keyword(s):  
Older People ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Later Life ◽  
Social Aspects ◽  
Active Lifestyle ◽  
Retirement Migration ◽  
Material Resources ◽  
The Social ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Discussions of precarity in later life have tended to focus on the uncertainties of material resources, and the feelings of anxiety that this evokes (e.g., Lain et al. 2019) as some older people thus face the risk of being excluded from the broader society. Although scholars often point to inequalities, such as those based on class and gender, as having an influence on the likelihood of older people experiencing such precarity, ageism is considered only to the extent that it can exacerbate the impact of these statuses through, for instance, labor market experiences. Here, we expand upon the impact of ageism on the social aspects of precarity: the loss of recognition and respect as a person that is at the core of social bonds. Drawing on qualitative interviews we have conducted among Swiss, British, and U.S. older people who migrated to cheaper countries in retirement, we demonstrate that ageism can influence precarity regardless of classes. We find that even among wealthier older migrants, who otherwise might fit the image of the retiree seeking an active lifestyle in a sunny location, the attempt to escape the devaluation heaped upon older people in their original country plays an important role. In their new countries, retired migrants of all classes felt that they were valued and part of a community, and this differed from the ageism in their home countries. We thus argue that ageism be considered in future analyses of precarity in later life.

Resilience, Relationality, and Older People: The Importance of Intergenerationality

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 644-660
Author(s):  
Anne Chappell ◽  
Elaine Welsh
Keyword(s):  
Older People ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Social Process ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Ageing Population ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Nuanced Understanding ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Intergenerational Connections

In this article, we examine the concept of resilience. Debates range from defining it as an individualised attribute to understanding it as a relational social process. Concerns about an ageing population alongside a growing interest in well-being have led to an increase in the use of the term ‘resilience’ in UK policy and political rhetoric. Developing strategies for ‘bouncing back’ from difficult circumstances has been at the heart of much discussion of resilience. Drawing on qualitative data from interviews and focus groups with older people in the UK, we explore their perspectives on resilience. We found that relationships, including intergenerational ones, are crucial to older people’s understandings of resilience. Our data showed that narratives from the past were used to sustain resilience in the present and that negotiation and exchange between generations, as well as intergenerational connections in the community, fostered resilience among our participants. We found that relationality was at the heart of older people’s perspectives on resilience and that the social process of resilience was acted out in their everyday interactions with others as well as through their memories of past interactions. This article argues that recognising the significance of these daily practices contributes to a more nuanced understanding of resilience.

scholarly journals Development and Progress as Historical Phenomena in Tanzania: “Maendeleo? We Had That in the Past”

2016 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert M. Ahearne
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Older People ◽  
The Past ◽  
Development Interventions ◽  
The Social

Abstract:Academic discussions of development continue to grow, yet critical engagements with communities affected by development interventions remain limited. Drawing from life history interviews conducted in southern Tanzania, this article details the varied experiences of development interventions among older people and how these affect broader understandings of progress. Many juxtapose their negative views ofujamaavillagization with more positive recollections of previous interventions (especially the Groundnut Scheme), which are infused with what is described here as “development nostalgia.” Perceptions of the past clearly inform the social, political, and economic aspirations forwarded today, with the richness of the constructed narratives adding further nuance to existing depictions of Tanzanian historiography.

The Power of Sex: English Plays by Women, 1958–1988

1991 ◽  
Vol 7 (27) ◽  
pp. 238-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sue-Ellen Case
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
University Of California ◽  
Feminist Critique ◽  
Women Playwrights ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Women's Lives ◽  
The University

Reading backwards, through the feminist critique, Sue-Ellen Case explores the role of sexuality in women's lives as portrayed in the work of British women playwrights during the past three decades. She illustrates the way in which the oppressive uses of sexuality in the patriarchy, identified by the social movement as rape and pornography, have been dramatized through dramatic narrative and character construction. In contrast to this representation of oppression, she discusses how the liberating role of pleasure and of women reclaiming their own desires provide a revolutionary feminist stage practice, in both heterosexual and lesbian social contexts. Sue-Ellen Case is Professor of English at the University of California, Riverside, and her works includeFeminism and TheatreandPerforming Feminisms: Feminist Critical Theory and Theatre.

Dance Discourses: Keywords In Dance Research

2012 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-99
Author(s):  
André Lepecki
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Dance Studies ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Critical Dance Studies ◽  
Analytical Tools

The formation of what Randy Martin has called “critical dance studies” (1998) has gained increased momentum over the past decade. Martin's notion of critical dance studies clarified how dance scholarship was being reshaped by the explicit inclusion of critical theory in its methodologies and epistemologies. One of the major consequences for dance studies in embracing critical theory was the identification of dancing and choreographic practices as being also theory. Understanding dance as theory is not equivalent to seeing dance as the sole provider of the theoretical tools it needs for its own analysis (this would be intolerably solipsistic). Rather, it means that dance becomes a privileged practice ready to provide analytical tools for theorizing other areas of social performances: politics, culture, formations of disciplines and their bodies (docile or resistant). Dance is a mode of theorization that theory itself would need in order to address the social and political problematic brought by issues close to dance such as mobilization, embodiment, subjectivities, participation, representation, desire, discipline, control, etc.

scholarly journals A postmodern perspective regarding older adults’ oral health

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 741-748
Author(s):  
Alexandre Favero Bulgarelli ◽  
Fabiana Costa Machado Zacharias ◽  
Soraya Fernandes Mestriner ◽  
Ione Carvalho Pinto
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Oral Health ◽  
Older People ◽  
Social Constructionism ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Social Constructionist ◽  
Health It ◽  
The Past ◽  
Theoretical Support ◽  
The Social

Abstract This article aims to comprehend meaning assigned to oral health, by means of older adults discourses, supported by a Social Constructionist perspective. This is a qualitative study with a descriptive and comprehensive design based on the Social Constructionism theoretical support conducted by means of interviews with 19 older adults. Data were analysed by means of a Discourse Analysis with identification of Interpretative Repertoires, which structured the meanings proposed to oral health. It were created repertories to disclosure possible meanings assigned to the oral health by older people as: having a clean mouth; having good comprehensive/general health; having a beautiful smile and oral health well-being condition; and suffering in the past and accepting pain. The meaning assigned to oral health by older people, in a social constructionist perspective, allow us to comprehend the subjectivity behind oral health of older people, which can guide health professionals’ approaches to deal with it.

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