Placed in homecare: Living an everyday life restricted by dependence and monitoring

Summary, in English

Through a sociological case study this article analyses how, seen from a relational perspective, everyday life for elderly people receiving care in their own homes is lived with dependence on health-care professionals. The healthcare professionals’ time and tasks are assigned and allocated in advance so that the elderly people are neither allowed nor able to vary their response in

relation to the situation they encounter. The life of the client is also treated as though it were a solid, structured everyday life with minimal private time. Work in the home, for example, household chores and personal care, resembles a disciplining strategy. The client lives under conditions of monitoring and control comparable to conditions of imprisonment. The client is subject to the will of and social intercourse with other people in his own home; he both knows it is necessary and offers resistance to the conditions. In short, the

authors argue that the homecare service acts as a disciplining practice in modern society.

• Author: Stinne Glasdam; Jeanette Præstegaard; Nina Henriksen
• Department/s: Integrative Health Research
• Publishing year: 2013
• Language: English
• Pages: 83-99
• Publication/Series: Nordic Journal of Social Research
• Volume: 4
• Issue: 1
• Full text: - 192 kB; Download statistics
• Document type: Journal article
• Topic: Health Care Service and Management, Health Policy and Services and Health Economy
• Keywords: field study; case study; elderly; homecare; dependence; prison; Denmark; Foucault
• Status: Published
• Research group: Integrative Health Research
• ISBN/ISSN/Other: ISSN: 1892-2783; https://boap.uib.no/index.php/njsr/article/viewFile/264/497