Dementia Care Work in Singapore: Embodied Relations and Power Dynamics

ABSTRACT

Based on research at a dementia day-care center in Singapore, I discuss how embodied care relations proceed amidst cultural expectations on aging, dementia, and care work. Engaging with approaches that conceptualize “care” as either empathy or control, I argue that care between older people with dementia, their families, and care workers can be understood as a reiterative, dialogic process whereby care participants strive to keep pace with each other, however briefly, due to cognitive decline, care workers’ own limitations, and particular family difficulties. Care vacillates between practices of control, surveillance, and recognition, and comprises dynamic rather than enduring power relations.

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KEYWORDS:

• Singapore
• ancillary care
• care work
• dementia
• embodiment
• power

Acknowledgments

Research for this article was undertaken at National University of Singapore (NUS) from 2014-2016. Thanks goes to clients, care workers, helpers, and family members who I met at Dandelion; Kelvin Low, Vineeta Sinha, Qiushi Feng, Steve Ferzacca, Emily Chua, and others; Medical Anthropology’s editors; and reviewers of this article. This study was approved by the NUS Institutional Review Board.

Notes

1. Dandelion Dementia Day-care and names mentioned in the article are pseudonyms.

2. “Helpers” refers to foreign domestic helpers employed by clients’ families, who are asked by their employers to assist care workers.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Graduate Teaching Assistant Scheme from the National University of Singapore.

Notes on contributors

Junbin Tan

Junbin Tan is a doctoral student at Princeton University’s Department of Anthropology, and was teaching assistant at National University of Singapore.