Aarhus Universitets segl

Exploring and qualifying care of aging immigrants

Anthropological perspectives on municipality interventions to support self-appointed helpers in ethnic minority families. New postdoc project with Sara Lei Sparre.

‘Exploring and qualifying care of aging immigrants’ seeks to explore needs and responsibilities regarding aging, care and the family articulated and negotiated in encounters between municipal employees, ethnic minority elders and their self-appointed helpers in Aarhus and Ishøj Municipalities. More specifically, it investigates possibilities and challenges that the ‘self-appointed helper’ option (§94 in the Service Act) present to the municipalities in terms of care for elderly and employment of helpers in immigrant families. The project is action-oriented and characterized by user participation, and fieldwork will be carried out at different levels of the two municipalities as well as in encounters between the municipal actors and ethnic minority families. Analytically, it draws on anthropological, sociological and migration studies perspectives on the welfare state and its citizens; aging, generations and reciprocity in Denmark; and integration and inclusion. The project is part of the collective and interdisciplinary research project ‘Aging immigrants and self-appointed helpers’ (AISHA) funded by Velux and led by associate professor Mikkel Rytter at Department of Anthropology.

Sara Lei Sparre is based at Department of Anthropology. She holds a PhD (2013) from Department of Anthropology, Copenhagen University, and comes from a postdoc/assistant professor position at Cultural Encounters, Roskilde University.