Autonomy in assisted living: senior citizens’ invocation of institutional routines to achieve autonomy.
| Panel: | P59 - Identity & relationship construction in elderly talk |
| Author: | Heinemann, Trine |
| Abstract: | |
| From the perspective of interaction, previous research on assisted living has emphasized how the institutional setting of caretaking affects the autonomy of care recipients to the degree that institutional routines and requirements take precedence over the individual’s needs and wishes (Backhaus, 2009; Finlay et al, 2008; Grainger, 2004; Heinemann, in press; Makoni & Grainger, 2002). In the current paper, however, I focus on how institutional routines can also be used to the benefit of senior citizens in assisted living, i.e. to support the senior citizen’s needs and wishes and to ensure a degree of autonomy. Building on a collection of nine hours of video recorded interaction between senior citizens and their care assistants, I thus demonstrate how senior citizens invoke institutionalized routines in order to: a) enhance their entitlement to make requests b) reject proposals by the care assistant c) sanction the care assistant’s actions. |
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