Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the articulation of emancipatory imaginaries by older people in care homes. The paper is rooted in the local construction of presentation and transformation of self by older people in care homes yet illuminates a broader location within the phenomenology of 'agency and care'.

Paper long abstract:

The manifestation of self is a social product in two ways: it is a product of the roles and performances that an individual plays in social situations in society and secondly it is a product of validation and norms of society. Within an institution the capacity to sustain this self of a resident depends on his/her access to personal possessions, privacy and autonomy, thus attempting the construction of the self under institutional constraints. Institutions providing care for older people in India tend to revolve around a set of controls and routine. The result of this controls and routines on the presentation and transformation of self of the older people as individuals and as a group is the focal point of this paper. The paper is based on qualitative data collected from a care home in Goa, India. It attempts to explore the presence of agency which is manifested in everyday forms of resistance by older people in care homes. It examines how the institution becomes a battle ground for the older person between individual self and that of the institution. However in some cases it also becomes a protector and liberator of an individual self. The outcome however depends on the articulation of emancipatory imaginaries by the residents. The attempt of the paper is rooted in the local construction of presentation and transformation of self by older people in care homes yet illuminates a broader location within the phenomenology of 'agency and care'.