Food as care and friction in late life: marginalization of Muslim immigrant families in the Danish welfare state

ABSTRACT

Food is a central aspect of care in late life. This article focuses on the growing number of elderly Muslim immigrants in Denmark who on the basis of Service Act §94 can have a family member employed by the municipality as their “self-appointed helper.” The task is often given to a spouse, daughter or daughter-in-law, whose task is then to provide the care services for which the elderly person has been referred. Usually this would be undertaken by professional care workers, but instead a close family member is employed to fulfil the tasks. Food and meals is an area of conflicts between the elderly citizens, their self-appointed helpers and the municipality, since they often have different approaches to and understandings of the aim, function and meanings of food and meals. It is the ambition of  the so-called universal Scandinavian welfare state to treat all citizens equal. However, the ambition and efforts of municipal care managers (visitatorer) to create the same conditions and equal opportunities for all elderly citizens, paradoxically result in elderly Muslims immigrants (and their families), being further marginalized in Danish society.

KEYWORDS:

• Food
• food service
• municipality
• welfare state
• aging
• family care
• care managers
• Muslims
• minority
• Denmark

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The researchers involved in the AISHA-project are Professor MSO Mikkel Rytter, Associate Professor Sara Lei Sparre, and PhD Fellow Abir M. Ismail, all from the Department of Anthropology at Aarhus University, as well as Senior Researcher Anika Liversage from VIVE – The Danish Center for Social Science Research. Furthermore, Jamila Shah, Betül Özkaya, Cecilie Ravn Andersen, Maja Lundager Pedersen, Donya Khalil and Rikke Kildahl Brouer have all contributed to different stages of the data collection.

2. Some, but not all, participants in the project have asked for anonymity. Due to the study’s focus on vulnerable elderly immigrants, self-appointed helpers and care managers in different municipalities, we have chosen to anonymize all participants by changing their names, and in some cases also change recognizable features such as age, number of children, etc.

3. Caroline Nyvang and Jonatan Leer (2016) highlight Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time as a classic example of food as a catalyst for memory. Proust describes how the combination of tastes formed by a Madeleine and lime tea sends the surprised first-person narrator on an inadvertent trip down memory lane to the country of his childhood.

4. For an in-depth discussion of religious “duty” and elderly care (see Ismail 2021).

5. This is based on experiences (and perhaps preconceptions?) among the families who took part in the study. We have not had the opportunity to systematically analyze the food service schemes in all Danish municipalities. We have, however, contacted various researchers and actors in the field, who do not know of any food service schemes that use halal meat.

6. Neither Noor nor her siblings are self-appointed helpers for their parents. The example stems from the broader interview material gathered in connection with the project.

Additional information

Funding

The AISHA-project is funded by the VELUX-foundation in the HUMPraxis program, project no. 14372.

Notes on contributors

Mikkel Rytter

Mikkel Rytter is Professor (mso) at Department of Anthropology, Aarhus University. He is co-director of MIAU – Centre for Migration and Integration, Aarhus University and author of Family Upheaval: Generation, Mobility and Relatedness among Pakistani Migrants in Denmark (Berghahn Books, 2013) and co-editor of the special issue “Rituals of Migration,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Vol. 44(16).

Abir M. Ismail

Abir M. Ismail is a PhD-student at the Department of Anthropology, Aarhus University. Her project explores the relationship between elderly care, generations and religiosity in Arab families in Denmark. Her recent publications include “Care in practice: Negotiations of elderly care in multigenerational Arab Muslim families in Denmark,” Contemporary Islam: Dynamics of Muslim Life.

Sara Lei Sparre

Sara Lei Sparre is Associate Professor at Department of Anthropology, Aarhus University. She is currently Research-PI of the collaborative research project From Migrant to SOSU Aspirant funded by Innovation Fund Denmark. Her research in Denmark and the Middle East include migrant experiences, interfaith relations, citizenship and the (welfare) state; ageing immigrants, elderly care and migrant care workers; and religion, generations and youth activism.