Heaviness, intensity, and intimacy

Abstract

In the Netherlands the recent shift to a 'participation society' has led to a reconfiguration of health care arrangements for long-term care. The new long-term care act, scheduled to commence January 2015, forms the political realization of the participation society: people are expected to decrease their dependency on state provisions and instead become self-sufficient or dependent on family and community solidarity. In this Think Piece we argue that the implicit references of policy makers to pre-welfare state community solidarity and self-sufficiency do not adequately consider the historical and social embeddedness of care. Referring to Rose's concept of 'politics of conduct' we argue that in framing care as a moral obligation, the current politics of conduct may obscure the physical and psychological heaviness of intimate care between family members, the diversity of care relations, and their sociohistorical embeddedness. The participation project In recent years health care arrangements in the Netherlands have changed rapidly. The combination of rising care costs, an aging population, and the 2008 global economic crisis has led to a series of austerity measures aimed at cost containment and reduction in recent years. These austerity measures go hand in hand with a more ideological project: the gradual shift from a caring state to a 'participation society' 1 based on the claim that the welfare state contributed to a loss of social solidarity and individual responsibility.

Anthropology of Aging and Care

“…For much of the twentieth century in Western Europe, social welfare programs assumed significant responsibility for the well-being of older citizens. More recently, in several nations, liberal concerns about ageism, discourses of active aging, and concerns about the expense of aging populations have eroded support for retirement and long-term care systems built on previous understandings of national intergenerational solidarity, indicating significant changes in the ways that welfare states care for populations (Da Roit 2010, Da Roit & de Klerk 2014, Degiuli 2010, Greenberg & Muehlebach 2007. Neoliberal retractions of the welfare state are provoking new ways of understanding care and sociality.…”

An Exploratory Study of the Support Needs in 24/7 Online Support for People With Mild Intellectual Disabilities

“…This is reflected in recent reforms of the national long‐term care system and the ratification of the United Nations' Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) in 2016. The changes in Dutch long‐term care policy and practice are intended to stimulate all people to take on more individual and social responsibility (Da Roit & de Klerk, ). The underlying assumption is that various social care services may be provided by family members and social networks, so that individuals become less dependent on formal care.…”

Long-term Care Hospitals and Changing Elderly Care in South Korea

“…Population ageing is a global phenomenon, as is the commodification of elderly care attendant upon it (Buch 2015;Aulenbacher et al 2018). In relation to the trajectories leading to care commodification, however, differences exist among countries: in advanced economies where the welfare state is well established, commodification followed neoliberal reforms marked by privatisation, decentralisation, and the retrenchment of the welfare state (McGregor 2001;Da Roit and de Klerk 2014); conversely, in societies where welfare provision for elderly people is not fully established, commodification emerged as a surrogate measure aimed at unburdening the state of its welfare responsibilities while allowing adult children to continue to work and contribute to the country's economic development (Coe 2017;Leung, Lam, and Liang 2020).…”