Empowering the Elderly?:How ›Help to Self-Help‹ Health Interventions Shape Ageing and Eldercare in Denmark (Aging Studies)

by: Amy Clotworthy (Author)

Publisher: transcript publishing

Edition: 1st

Publication Date: 2020/7/27

Language: English

Print Length: 262 pages

ISBN-10: 3837652114

ISBN-13: 9783837652116

Book Description

Health programmes that offer ›help to self-help‹ are meant to empower ageing adults to remain independent and self-sufficient at home for as long as possible. But what happens when the private home becomes a political realm in which state intervention and individual agency happen simultaneously? Based on 15 months of ethnographic fieldwork in a Danish municipality, Amy Clotworthy describes how both health professionals and elderly citizens negotiate the political discourses about health and ageing that frame their relational encounter. By elucidating some of the conflicts, paradoxes, and negotiations that occur, she provides important insights into the contemporary organisation of eldercare.

About the Author

Health programmes that offer ›help to self-help‹ are meant to empower ageing adults to remain independent and self-sufficient at home for as long as possible. But what happens when the private home becomes a political realm in which state intervention and individual agency happen simultaneously? Based on 15 months of ethnographic fieldwork in a Danish municipality, Amy Clotworthy describes how both health professionals and elderly citizens negotiate the political discourses about health and ageing that frame their relational encounter. By elucidating some of the conflicts, paradoxes, and negotiations that occur, she provides important insights into the contemporary organisation of eldercare.