Buse, CE and Twigg, J (2015) Materialising memories: Exploring the stories of people with dementia through dress. Ageing and Society. ISSN 0144-686X
Abstract
In this article, we use clothes as a tool for exploring the life-stories and narratives of people with dementia, eliciting memories through the sensory and material dimensions of dress. The article draws on an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded study ‘Dementia and Dress’, which explored everyday experiences of clothing for carers, care-workers and people with dementia, using qualitative and ethnographic methods including: ‘wardrobe interviews’, observations and visual and sensory approaches. In our analysis, we use three dimensions of dress as a device for exploring the experiences of people with dementia: kept clothes, as a way of retaining connections to memories and identity; discarded clothes, and their implications for understanding change and loss in relation to the ‘dementia journey’; and absent clothes, invoked through the sensory imagination, recalling images of former selves, and carrying identity forward into the context of care. The article contributes to understandings of narrative, identity and dementia, drawing attention to the potential of material objects for evoking narratives, and maintaining biographical continuity for both men and women. The paper has larger implications for understandings of ageing and care practice; as well as contributing to the wider Material Turn in gerontology, showing how cultural analyses can be applied even to frail older groups who are often excluded from such approaches.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © Cambridge University Press 2015 This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | Narratives; dementia; clothing; material culture; objects; dress; biographies |
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: | 08 Apr 2015 10:24 |
Last Modified: | 23 Jan 2017 21:10 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0144686X15000185 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Cambridge University Press (CUP) |
Identification Number: | 10.1017/S0144686X15000185 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:84780 |