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Ethnographic reflections on selfhood, embodiment and Alzheimer's disease
- Author:
- KONTOS Pia C.
- Journal article citation:
- Ageing and Society, 24(6), November 2004, pp.829-849.
- Publisher:
- Cambridge University Press
Explicit in the current construction of Alzheimer's disease is the assumption that memory impairment caused by cognitive deficiencies leads to a steady loss of selfhood. The insistence that selfhood is the exclusive privilege of the sphere of cognition has its origins in the modern western philosophical tradition that separates mind from body, and positions the former as superior to the latter. This dichotomy suggests a fundamental passivity of the body, since it is primarily cognition that is held to be essential to selfhood. In contrast to the assumed erasure of selfhood in Alzheimer's disease, and challenging the philosophical underpinnings of this assumption, this paper presents the findings of an ethnographic study of selfhood in Alzheimer's disease in a Canadian long-term care facility. It argues and demonstrates that selfhood persists even with severe dementia, because it is an embodied dimension of human existence. Using a framework of embodiment that integrates the perspectives of Merleau-Ponty and Bourdieu, it is argued that selfhood is characterised by an observable coherence and capacity for improvisation, and sustained at a pre-reflective level by the primordial and socio-cultural significance of the body. The participants in this study interacted meaningfully with the world through their embodied way of ‘being-in-the-world’.
Rethinking sociability in long-term care: An embodied dimension of selfhood
- Author:
- KONTOS Pia C.
- Journal article citation:
- Dementia: the International Journal of Social Research and Practice, 11(3), May 2012, pp.329-346.
- Publisher:
- Sage
The author argues for an expansion of the discourse on sociability to include embodied self-expression as contained in the theoretical notion of “embodied selfhood”. Embodied selfhood is the pre-reflective nature of selfhood deriving from the body's pre-reflective capacity for engaging with the world and the socio-cultural significance of the body. This paper calls for the discourse on sociability in dementia to include embodied selfhood as a source of interactive practices. An 8-month ethnographic study of selfhood in dementia was conducted in a Canadian long-term care facility. Chai Village is an orthodox Jewish care facility accommodating 472 residents. The majority suffered with Alzheimer’s disease and a smaller number of residents had vascular dementia. Thirteen residents took part in the study. The findings are discussed in terms of empathy, social etiquette, and the power of gesture. The observations suggest that social and cultural habits, movements and other physical cues serve important communicative functions in the course of social interaction. The author believes this underscores how sociability is an embodied dimension of selfhood, which not only broadens the discourse on sociability in dementia but also offers important insights to inform person-centred dementia care.