Buse, CE and Twigg, JM (2014) Looking “out of place”: analysing the spatial and symbolic meanings of dementia care settings through dress. International Journal of Ageing and Later Life, 9 (1). 69 - 95. ISSN 1652-8670
Abstract
The article explores how clothing exposes – and troubles – the ambiguous location of care homes on the boundaries of public/private, home/institutional space. It deploys a material analysis of the symbolic uses and meanings of dress, extending the remit of the new cultural gerontology to encompass the ‘‘fourth age,’’ and the lives of older people with dementia. The article draws on an ESRC-funded study ‘‘Dementia and Dress,’’ conducted in the United Kingdom (UK), which explored everyday experiences of clothing for people with dementia, carers and careworkers, using ethnographic and qualitative methods. Careworkers and managers were keen to emphasise the ‘‘homely’’ nature of care homes, yet this was sometimes at odds with the desire to maintain presentable and orderly bodies, and with institutional routines of bodywork. Residents’ use of clothing could disrupt boundaries of public/private space, materialising a sense of not being ‘‘at home,’’ and a desire to return there.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | (c) 2014, The Authors. This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 3.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. |
Keywords: | Care homes; space; place; dementia; public/private; dress; embodiment |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Education, Social Sciences and Law (Leeds) > School of Sociology and Social Policy (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 25 Mar 2015 12:23 |
Last Modified: | 23 Apr 2015 16:06 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.3384/ijal.1652-8670.20149169 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Linköping University Electronic Press |
Identification Number: | 10.3384/ijal.1652-8670.20149169 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:84409 |