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No substitute for human touch? Towards a critically posthumanist approach to dementia care

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 May 2016

NICHOLAS JENKINS
NICHOLAS JENKINS*
Affiliation:
Sociology & Social Policy, University of the West of Scotland, Paisley, UK.
*
Address for correspondence: Nicholas Jenkins, Sociology & Social Policy,University of the West of Scotland, Paisley Campus, Ellis Building, Paisley PA1 2BE, UK E-mail: nick.jenkins@uws.ac.uk
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Abstract

This paper develops a sociological critique of the pre-eminence of humanism in dementia care policy and practice. Throughout the centuries, humanism has served as something of a double-edged sword in relation to the care and treatment of people living with progressive neurocognitive conditions. On the one hand, humanism has provided an intellectual vehicle for recognising people with dementia as sentient beings with inalienable human rights. On the other hand, humanist approaches have relied upon and re-enforced normative understandings of what it means to be human; understandings that serve to position people with dementia as deficient. Two posthumanist approaches to dementia care policy and practice are explored in this paper: transhumanism and critical posthumanism. The former seeks, primarily, to use advances in 21st-century technologies to eradicate dementia. The latter seeks to de-centre anthropomorphic interpretations of what it means to be a person (with dementia), so as to create space for more diverse human–non-human relationships to emerge. The paper concludes with some tentative suggestions as to what a critically posthumanist approach to dementia care policy and practice might look like, as we move closer towards the middle of the 21st century.

Keywords

Alzheimer's diseaseassistive technologyhumanismtranshumanismsocial citizenshipsymbiontssymbiosis
Type
Articles
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 37 , Issue 7 , August 2017 , pp. 1484 - 1498
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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