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Place matters: the home as a key site of old-age care in coastal Tanzania
Editor(s)
Hoffman, Jaco; Pype, Katrien
Book title
Ageing in Sub-Saharan Africa: Spaces and Practices of Care
Publisher
Policy Press
Place of publication
Bristol
Pages
95-114
Keywords
Frail and disabled older people, care arrangements, care scapes, coastal Tanzania
Abstract
Grounded in ethnographic field research in Tanzania, this chapter asks what happens when older people become restricted in their movements. It shows that for old, ill and disabled people in rural and urban areas of coastal Tanzania, as probably in most parts of the world, the home becomes a place of particular importance. But as the chapter illustrates with detailed case studies of older people’s everyday experiences, the home should not just be considered in its material sense, as an enclosed and demarcated space, but rather as lived space interacting with broader lived spaces of care. Introducing the term ‘carescapes’ the chapter argues that lived spaces of care are created at the intersections of the home in its material sense, embodied people, and the broader society, which in turn increasingly shapes and is shaped by global connections. The everyday care of frail and disabled older people occurs at these shifting intersections, but only close kin – in a social rather than a geographical sense – are involved in the provision of intimate, personal care and livelihood. Up to now, (non)governmental and faith-based organizations and private actors hardly engage in the personal care of frail or disabled older people in Tanzania.
