Paper short abstract:

The paper investigates the undesired transgressing of boundaries protecting intimacy and autonomy in situations of care, leading to violation of privacy, abuse of power and intensification of suffering.

Paper long abstract:

The term ‘transgression’ has acquired a negative meaning (wrongdoing, misbehaviour, breaking rules) but the original Latin verb from which it is derived, 'transgredior', literally means ‘to cross’. This could refer to a river, mountains, a border or boundary, etc. To go beyond a generally accepted boundary is not necessarily a wrong thing to do. Care-giving is an insightful example of the various and ambiguous meanings that ‘transgression’ can have. Crossing the normal demarcation line that protects a person’s privacy and independence is accepted as a necessity in caring for people who depend on help. Children, sick people, elderly must sacrifice part of their privacy and allow care-givers to enter their domain of privacy and bodily intimacy and to take over part of their decision power. ‘Successful ageing’, for example, implies accepting these transgressions without resistance or bitterness. How far and how deep these transgressions reach should be mutually agreed upon by care-giver and –receiver. When the care-giver goes beyond this new defined boundary, transgression does indeed become misbehaviour and, in its most extreme case, tyranny. This paper investigates the undesired transgressing of rules protecting intimacy and autonomy of patients and older people in situations of care, leading to violation of privacy, abuse of power and intensification of suffering. The ethnographic ‘data’ for the paper are derived from literary sources (novels), films and (auto)biographical accounts of derailed care.