Intercorporeality and visual representations of carework in nursing home environments

• Main Author: Gloria Puurveen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2017-01-01
• Series: Cogent Arts & Humanities
• Subjects: carework; end-of-life dementia care; nursing homes; visual ethnography; visual methods
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23311983.2017.1422226

Caring for the body is a central activity of care staff working in nursing home settings. While there is a growing body of literature on social dynamics of carework, less attention has been paid to embodied dimensions of this work. This paper draws upon fieldwork data, including video data, derived from ethnographic case studies of end-of-life advanced dementia care to elucidate intercorporeal aspects of carework. Focusing on practices of caring for the physical body (e.g. dressing the resident), this paper discusses how visual methods can enable researchers to carefully attend to embodied, inter-relational and ethical dimensions of carework that contributes to an aesthetic approach to caring for people with advanced dementia. In addition, this paper explores how visual representations of carework must be considered within the complex interplay between nursing home regulatory mechanisms and the socio-cultural location of both the care providers and residents.