Publication: Envejecer (se) y cuidar (se): una aproximación antropológica al mundo de los mayores
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2016-05-23
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Universidad Complutense de Madrid
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Abstract
El presente trabajo de tesis reúne los resultados de cuatro años de investigación sobre envejecimiento y cuidado. Su propósito no es definir cuáles serían las mejores políticas de cuidado y envejecimiento activo a poner en práctica. Tampoco cuál sería la mejor representación de los mayores y la vejez. Su propósito principal es abordar el envejecimiento y el cuidado desde una perspectiva que no entiende el envejecimiento y el cuidado como entes separados entre ellos y unidos a través de la idea de dependencia (en base a la ecuación viejo/a = dependiente = necesidad de cuidado), sino como elementos entrelazados entre sí en una compleja red de interdependencia y autonomía relacional. Por tanto, se plantea un cambio de perspectiva capaz de desligar el envejecimiento y el cuidado de la dependencia, mediante la resignificación del envejecimiento como proceso heterogéneo e indeterminado, y la exposición de la amplitud de contextos y formas de cuidado. Esta intención se origina en el hecho de que en España la relación entre envejecimiento, dependencia y cuidado ha sido examinada principalmente desde un enfoque biomédico. En efecto, la mayoría de los discursos (científicos, institucionales y ―populares‖) se refieren al envejecimiento y a la vejez como algo estrictamente relacionado con la dependencia, en particular la dependencia física - o la autonomía como alejamiento de la dependencia - y, a su vez, con el cuidado a la dependencia: envejeciendo la persona se convierte en una persona dependiente que, para seguir viviendo y conservar su autonomía, necesita del cuidado de otros...
This study presents the results of four years of ethnographic research on the process of ageing and social care. The aim is not to define what would be the best social care policy or the best policy to ensure an active and healthy ageing. Nor to suggest what is the best representation of ageing and elderly people. The main purpose of this study is to facilitate a change of perspective about these topics by considering the ageing of the body as a separate process from the increasing dependency attributed to elderly people, and to open the possibility of alternative models of ageing and care beyond biomedical dichotomies (normal/pathological, independent/dependent, self-sufficient/non-selfsufficient, etc.). In Spain most of the studies about ageing, dependency and care are based on a biomedical approach that understands the dependency as a result of some physical limitations of age or disability (Guzmán, Moscoso and Toboso, 2010). Such an approach generates a dichotomous discourse that differentiates between "normative" body (healthy, trained, independent, autonomous, young, etc.) and "anomalous" body (sick, disabled, dependent, vulnerable, old, etc.). The first one implies independency; the latter implies dependency (Ferreira, 2008). So, elderly people are treated like a body-object with a "functional" value, which is relative to the values of the normative body. In this context care is described as a link between two people: the caregiver (healthy, active, young, independent, autonomous) and the care receiver (sick, passive, old, dependent, non-autonomous) (Tronto, 2005, p. 244). This description acknowledges the possibility that a person can give and receive care at the same time, and it ignores the subjectivity and the agency of "dependent" people (Vega Solís, 2009). It is well known that in Spain the ageing population is increasing (Instituto de Mayores y Servicios Sociales [IMSERSO], 2004). It's a demographic change that, due to the progressive inversion of the population pyramid associated to it, is understood as a problem...
This study presents the results of four years of ethnographic research on the process of ageing and social care. The aim is not to define what would be the best social care policy or the best policy to ensure an active and healthy ageing. Nor to suggest what is the best representation of ageing and elderly people. The main purpose of this study is to facilitate a change of perspective about these topics by considering the ageing of the body as a separate process from the increasing dependency attributed to elderly people, and to open the possibility of alternative models of ageing and care beyond biomedical dichotomies (normal/pathological, independent/dependent, self-sufficient/non-selfsufficient, etc.). In Spain most of the studies about ageing, dependency and care are based on a biomedical approach that understands the dependency as a result of some physical limitations of age or disability (Guzmán, Moscoso and Toboso, 2010). Such an approach generates a dichotomous discourse that differentiates between "normative" body (healthy, trained, independent, autonomous, young, etc.) and "anomalous" body (sick, disabled, dependent, vulnerable, old, etc.). The first one implies independency; the latter implies dependency (Ferreira, 2008). So, elderly people are treated like a body-object with a "functional" value, which is relative to the values of the normative body. In this context care is described as a link between two people: the caregiver (healthy, active, young, independent, autonomous) and the care receiver (sick, passive, old, dependent, non-autonomous) (Tronto, 2005, p. 244). This description acknowledges the possibility that a person can give and receive care at the same time, and it ignores the subjectivity and the agency of "dependent" people (Vega Solís, 2009). It is well known that in Spain the ageing population is increasing (Instituto de Mayores y Servicios Sociales [IMSERSO], 2004). It's a demographic change that, due to the progressive inversion of the population pyramid associated to it, is understood as a problem...
Description
Tesis inédita de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Ciencias Políticas y Sociología, Departamento de Antropología Social, leída el 12-11-2015