ECAS7

Panels

(P182)

Ageing in Sub-Sahara Africa: Shifting Landscapes of Moral Neoliberal Reforms

Location KH120
Date and Start Time 29 June, 2017 at 16:00

Convenors

Piet van Eeuwijk (University of Basel) email
Brigit Obrist (University of Basel) email
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Short Abstract

The panel explores how current transfiguration of ageing, caused by shifting landscapes of moral neoliberal reforms in social welfare, health and related social fields, affect older people and intergenerational relations in urban and increasingly also rural areas.

Long Abstract

The transfiguration of ageing is a phenomenon of both urban spaces and urbanity in Sub-Sahara Africa. Emerging and shifting landscapes of moral neoliberal reforms, particularly in social welfare, health care and elder care, originate in cities but impact far beyond. A good example is the current strife for universal pension coverage. These reforms affect older people's everyday lives in urban centres but increasingly also in remoter areas, whether we think of these reforms as personal risk mitigation and bigger individual protection for older persons, capitalization of social relations such as elder care work, increased juridification of constitutional human rights of elderly people leading to individual claims, and projectification of older persons' social welfare concerns such as development organizations being engaged in profit-making institutionalized elder care. Moreover, global concepts like 'universal health coverage', 'healthy ageing', 'active ageing' or 'productive ageing', evolving from a neoliberal notion of a self-reliant, continually reflective and autonomously acting elderly individual, increasingly shape health services and practices in cities as well as in villages. Other reforms, like the ongoing privatization of important services such as water, electricity, health care, communication and transportation, also transfigure older people's everyday experience and practice, wherever they live.

The panel will not only explore how older people live these shifting landscapes of moral neoliberal reforms. We also invite speakers who reveal how younger people reflect about intergenerational relations and negotiate ideals of elder care morality against the background of these neoliberal transfigurations.

This panel is closed to new paper proposals.

Papers

Innovations in Cancer and Care - Urban Hospital-Ethnography

Author: Andrea Buhl (University of Basel)  email

Short Abstract

With the increasing occurrence of cancer diseases, patients have to attend urban specialized hospitals. In Tanzania, the cancer centre in Dar es Salaam not only offers high-tech cancer therapies, it also provides the innovative approach of palliative care for those with a terminal illness.

Long Abstract

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania's industrial, commercial and governmental center, is one of the fastest growing cities in Africa, and currently home to a tenth of the country's population. The new rapid demographic transition not only accelerates urban growth, it also affects health landscapes. Thus, non-communicable diseases are becoming an increasing burden in Sub-Saharan Africa. Among those cancer stands out with the highest mortality and fastest deterioration of patients, especially where screening examinations are scarce and the diagnosis is often only made in advanced stages. In hope of relief or cure, cancer patients travel to the country's only specialized cancer center in Dar es Salaam. As governmental hospital, it offers free services for the population, and with international donor support also specific and innovative high-tech cancer therapies are available.

My ethnographic research project, conducted between 2012 and 2015, focuses on in-hospital care practices and the questions what comes beside and beyond all that, where the effect of those technologies is limited and cure is no longer an option. My research captures stories of cancer patients and relatives from all over the country, who are longing for help, and entering the urban hospital with high hopes placed in new treatment technologies, but often little chance of recovery. The approach of Palliative Care as hospital service for those patients, addresses physical, emotional and spiritual needs, and is part of these innovative treatment services.

This panel is closed to new paper proposals.