Abstract
This article examines how the category of the elderly in Japan is constructed through diverse forms of care, understood as moral practices intrinsic to peoples’ senses of self. It offers an analysis of a range of informal as well as institutional configurations of care in the Japanese urban context, highlighting the complexity as well as the overlapping nature of these diverse arrangements. It also explores ethnographically how older people experience these arrangements as they move through different sites of care, and how they negotiate the conflicting demands on their sense of self. The various types of care at work in these settings all contribute to different understandings of older persons, and different constructions of the category of the elderly: as clients; as visitors or guests; as fragile ‘struggling persons’; as ‘grannies’ in familial relations; as (caring) neighbours. More than a handful of labels, these variable configurations of personal identity affect care practices and social relationships in direct and tangible ways.
Highlights
This article offers an analysis of a range of informal as well as institutional configurations of care in the Japanese urban context, highlighting the complexity as well as the overlapping nature of these diverse arrangements
When care is understood more broadly than formal medical care, or than strictly defined welfare provision systems such as the Long–Term Care Insurance in Japan to include a variety of forms of support and expressions of concerns for others, the extent of involvement of those who are otherwise seen as merely receivers of care becomes even more prominent
It certainly cannot be reduced to an image of frail dependents, as many older Japanese are actively involved in the provision of care to others
Summary
The welfare commissioners and community network promotion officers are supposed to “look out for” those “in need of help,” those who “need support,” those who “seem to be struggling.” They are to make sure that no one gets isolated or is left to their own devices, not least the “elderly people” (kōreisha san), the suffix –san both adding respectfulness and softening the administrative sound of the formal designation of the “elderly.” In their role they are supposed to watch over the elderly as vulnerable, potentially at risk of loneliness and frailty - at least as seen by their employers at the local authority.
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