Body work and later-life care in Turkey
A qualitative study of paid and unpaid carers of older people
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11201134 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Yelda Özen (0000-0003-0382-5094, Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 40 |
| Issue | 10 |
| Pages | 2106-2127 |
| Publication date | 2020-10-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Ageing and Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0144-686X • E-ISSN: 1469-1779 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0144686x19000989 |
| OpenAlex | W2966071670 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 16 |
The ageing population of Turkey has brought later-life care into question. Family care remains most prevalent, but institutional, paid and professional care are increasing. Literature in Turkey has focused on the medical or social policy aspects but not care-givers’ experiences, nor how the care is performed. This study aims to illuminate care-givers’ experiences using qualitative methods, through in-depth interviews in Ankara with 19 care-givers providing home care for people aged 65 and over. Commonalities and differences were revealed among unpaid family care-givers, paid care-givers and professional care-givers. First, whether paid or unpaid, the bodily and emotional aspects of care work are intertwined. To cope with the ‘negativities’ involved in the work, nurses usually medicalised bodily tasks, unpaid care-givers cited traditional responsibilities and employed infantilisation, while paid care-givers mostly informalised the relationship, infantilised the person cared for and underlined their asexuality. Secondly, care work is gendered; silenced, invisible and ambivalent; related to intimacy with older bodies; and performed in the home space, which blurs the distinction between the private and public field for paid care. Finally, it involves emotional work regarding managing the bodily aspects and navigating the relationships surrounding the older person; and it is labour-intensive with an exploitative character
Ambivalence · Care work · Emotional labor · Paid work · Population · Qualitative research · Sociology · Unpaid work · Work (physics) · Emotional Labor in Professions · Fashion and Cultural Textiles · Gender Studies and Social Issues · Medicine · Nursing · Psychology · Social Psychology
The Body in Culture, Technology and Society
A Labour of Love
The Managed Heart
Bathing - the Body and Community Care
What Is ‘Body Work’? A Review of the Literature
The Feminization of Body Work
The body, gender, and age
Carework as a form of bodywork
Toward a Sociology of (Gendered) Disgust
Managing the body work of home care
Conceptualising body work in health and social care
Afterword
Time, space and touch at work
Care = organisation + physical labour + emotional labour
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2023 - 2026 (4) |
| Highly cited | No |