Precarity, Assemblages, and Indonesian Elder Care

The precariousness of living with, and caring for people with, dementia: Insights from the IDEAL programme

This paper uses precarity as a framework to understand the vulnerabilities experienced by those living with or caring for someone living with dementia. Drawing on qualitative interview data from the Improving the Experience of Dementia and Enhancing Active Life (IDEAL) programme, we attend to our participants' reflections on how they manage the condition and the wider circumstances in which this occurs. To interrogate the utility of precarity, we focus on our participants' descriptions of needs and challenges and set these alongside both the wider contexts in which they seek or offer care (formal and informal) and the sets of values attributed to different ways of living with dementia. Building on the work of Portacolone, our analysis identified four interconnected themes: uncertainty; experiences of support and services; independence and personhood; and cumulative pressures and concerns. We develop this analysis by reviewing how our themes reflect, extend, or depart from previously identified markers of precarity and consider the specific ways in which these markers shape the lives of those living with dementia.

A Kaupapa Māori conceptualization and efforts to address the needs of the growing precariat in Aotearoa New Zealand: A situated focus on Māori

In Aotearoa New Zealand, the precariat is populated by at least one in six New Zealanders, with Māori (Indigenous peoples) being over-represented within this emerging social class. For Māori, this socio-economic positioning reflects a colonial legacy spanning 150 years of economic and cultural subjugation, and intergenerational experiences of material, cultural and psychological insecurities. Relating our Kaupapa Māori approach (Māori cultural values and principles underlining research initiatives) to the precariat, this article also draws insights from existing scholarship on social class in psychology and Assemblage Theory in the social sciences to extend present conceptualizations of the Māori precariat. In keeping with the praxis orientation central to our approach, we consider three exemplars of how our research into Māori precarity is mobilized in efforts to inform public deliberations and government policies regarding poverty reduction, humanizing the welfare system and promoting decent work. Note: Aotearoa New Zealand has been popularized within the everyday lexicon of New Zealanders as a political statement of Indigenous rights for Māori.

'The Devil's Company': A Grounded Theory Study on Aging, Loneliness and Social Change Among 'Older Adult Children' in Rural Indonesia

Introduction: As a consequence of rising life expectancies, many families are no longer made up of one, but two simultaneously aging generations. This elderly parent-older adult child (OAC) dyad has emerged as a newly overserved yet little explored demographic phenomenon. Studies on this intergenerational aging dyad and the possible ramifications of when caregivers are simultaneously aging with care-receivers are scarce, especially in low and middle-income countries. This study explored the process by which rural Indonesian OACs experience their own aging, thereby gaining insights into how this newly evolving reality impacts the traditional ways of old-age care provision. Methods: This study has a qualitative design and draws on eight focus group discussions with 48 community-dwelling OACs (23 men, 25 women; mean age 64 years) in four rural villages in the Yogyakarta Special Region, Indonesia. The theoretical framework was largely inspired by symbolic interactionism aided by the sensitizing concepts of social network deficits, interpersonal emotions, and the social construction of risks. Data were analyzed using Grounded Theory as outlined by Corbin and Strauss. Results: Respondents' accounts reflected four categories: 1) aging in a welt of chronic insecurity; 2) OACs: a generation "betwixt and between" expected demands and unmet expectations; 3) landscapes of loneliness; and 4) compromising against conventions. As depicted in a conceptual model, these categories interrelated with each other and were linked by a core category, "bargaining for a sense of security", which collectively summarized a process by which OACs' experienced their own course of aging. Conclusion: Our study provided insights into how and why loneliness emerged amidst the challenges of social and demographic transformations and how in response to this unconventional compromises were made, which affect both the networks of caretakers and the places of old-age care. It is doing so by including the perspectives of rural Indonesian OACs. The results showed how multiple intersecting negative experiences constrained the aging experiences of OACs and produced precarious aging trajectories. Our findings highlight the importance of old-age loneliness as an emerging public health and social problem by discussing how intrinsically this emotion was interwoven with social life.