Risk and care in an aging United States

<p>In the United States, an ‘aging crisis’ has been brewing around the rising number of older persons and the relations of care their longer lives require. New forms of neoliberal governance, which seek to manage this aging disaster, task elders with the individual responsibility to prepare an...

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Main Author: Ryan, C
Other Authors: Pratten, D
Format: Thesis
Published: 2018
Subjects:
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author Ryan, C
author2 Pratten, D
author_facet Pratten, D
Ryan, C
author_sort Ryan, C
collection OXFORD
description <p>In the United States, an ‘aging crisis’ has been brewing around the rising number of older persons and the relations of care their longer lives require. New forms of neoliberal governance, which seek to manage this aging disaster, task elders with the individual responsibility to prepare and to control their aging futures. Through an ethnographic case study at Hollenbeck Palms, a Continuing Care Retirement Community in Los Angeles, this dissertation investigates how a risk framework shapes the everyday, affective experiences of aging through the examination of contracting care, rewriting kin relations, mobility practices, and playing bingo. It explores how strategies of care at once reflect this regime of risk and also defy and transcend it.</p> <p>Through the analysis of elders’ and caregivers’ lives at Hollenbeck Palms, this dissertation contributes three insights: a logic of risk does not control aging futures, but instead generates even more uncertainty and insecurity in elders’ lives; uncertainty is not only an indelible part of aging, but is also actively generated by elders; and contrary to the notion that the uncertainty of aging renders elders and caregivers into passive victims, elders and caregivers can learn to live alongside the uncertainty of aging care-fully. This dissertation rethinks aging in the twenty-first century United States as a site of generative possibility, instead of a site of danger.</p>
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spelling oxford-uuid:10e88d4b-fd55-4d5d-95c6-998af74272dc2024-12-01T13:31:24ZRisk and care in an aging United StatesThesishttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_db06uuid:10e88d4b-fd55-4d5d-95c6-998af74272dcCareRiskAgingORA Deposit2018Ryan, CPratten, D<p>In the United States, an ‘aging crisis’ has been brewing around the rising number of older persons and the relations of care their longer lives require. New forms of neoliberal governance, which seek to manage this aging disaster, task elders with the individual responsibility to prepare and to control their aging futures. Through an ethnographic case study at Hollenbeck Palms, a Continuing Care Retirement Community in Los Angeles, this dissertation investigates how a risk framework shapes the everyday, affective experiences of aging through the examination of contracting care, rewriting kin relations, mobility practices, and playing bingo. It explores how strategies of care at once reflect this regime of risk and also defy and transcend it.</p> <p>Through the analysis of elders’ and caregivers’ lives at Hollenbeck Palms, this dissertation contributes three insights: a logic of risk does not control aging futures, but instead generates even more uncertainty and insecurity in elders’ lives; uncertainty is not only an indelible part of aging, but is also actively generated by elders; and contrary to the notion that the uncertainty of aging renders elders and caregivers into passive victims, elders and caregivers can learn to live alongside the uncertainty of aging care-fully. This dissertation rethinks aging in the twenty-first century United States as a site of generative possibility, instead of a site of danger.</p>
spellingShingle Care
Risk
Aging
Ryan, C
Risk and care in an aging United States
title Risk and care in an aging United States
title_full Risk and care in an aging United States
title_fullStr Risk and care in an aging United States
title_full_unstemmed Risk and care in an aging United States
title_short Risk and care in an aging United States
title_sort risk and care in an aging united states
topic Care
Risk
Aging
work_keys_str_mv AT ryanc riskandcareinanagingunitedstates