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Potentiality made workable – exploring logics of care in reablement for older people

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2018

MALENE NØRSKOV BØDKER Open the ORCID record for MALENE NØRSKOV BØDKER [Opens in a new window]
MALENE NØRSKOV BØDKER*
Affiliation:
Center for Healthy Aging and Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
*
Address for correspondence: Malene Nørskov Bødker, Department of Public Health, Øster Farimagsgade 5, P.O.B. 2099, DK-1014 Copenhagen K, Denmark E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

In the face of population ageing, Western health-care systems are currently demonstrating an immense interest in mobilising older people's potentials. With this agenda in mind, several countries have introduced reablement: a type of home care aimed at mobilising older people's potentials for independence by means of short-term training programmes. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Denmark's home care sector, this paper explores how elder-care professionals translate the abstract notion of ‘potentiality’ into practice. Theoretically, the paper draws on Annemarie Mol's term ‘logic of care’. I demonstrate that professionals draw on two co-existing logics of care: a logic of reablement encapsulating ideals of successful ageing and life-long development; and a logic of retirement, which in contrast allows people at the end of life to retreat and engage in enjoyable activities. Professionals manage to balance these logics in order to live up to policy obligations while at the same time complying with moral standards of good care. However, very little is achieved in terms of increased independence. I argue that by narrowly focusing on bodily and quantifiable potentials, the ‘potentiality paradigm’ holds the risk of deeming older people to lack potential. In conclusion, I therefore encourage a more inclusive approach to elder-care and ageing that recognises the complexities of ageing, including older people's potentials for retreat and leisure.

Keywords

ageingpotentialityreablementcare worklogics of careethnography
Type
Article
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 39 , Issue 9 , September 2019 , pp. 2018 - 2041
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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