Philip Y. Kao PhD thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText

or a style of Pictionary therapy, but rather understanding that when people meld with
their natural surroundings, it alters their ontological projections and processes. In this
example, the onus is clearly on the caregiver to think about the ontological dimensions of
human nature and Nature. Having the curtains and even the actual window open does
not mean that the boundary and space between inside and outside is somehow bridged.
The point is that human ontology can be expanded beyond the strict confines of an
indoor room. This shift in empathic labour is something that Eden has tried to teach
various care providers.
Meanwhile, care plans have remained close to objectifying the body, both physiologically
and as a kind of bed to be made and cleaned. The care plan gives the basic outline of
tasks to be performed, so that even a part-time caregiver can understand the nature of
functions to be performed and plan his/her work accordingly. It also, however,
objectifies people so that they are, become, what is done to them. Therefore, for example
Emily is the cumbersome one (she is picky about how her sheets are made), and Grace is
the demanding one, because she requires two and often three people to assist with her
mobility transfers. The residents are often defined by what the caregiver needs to do to
them, so there is a relational structure indexed to particular care plans, and even how
those care plans break down in the face of change.
The last question is, just what kind of organization/institution is Tacoma Pastures? Does
it even make sense to regard Tacoma Pastures and for that matter other kinds of longterm
care facilities as ideological constructions and bounded instantiations of values,
norms and historical configurations of social relations? One approach is that it may no
longer be tenable to treat organizations and/or institutions such as the CCRC as bounded
entities populated by rational utility-maximizing persons. Instead of trying to figure out
just what kind of institution a CCRC might be, the anthropologist is probably better off
stepping back, and realizing that the ‘problem’ and fear of old age and ageing sits out
there in society without any formal and/or ritual binding. There are no doubt legal,
financial, and secular rituals involved in ageing, but as a concept and a process which is
given over to biological and cultural over-determinisms, ageing itself is being reinstituted
and quarantined in new contexts such as the CCRC. Being in the presence of
the residents and interacting with them under the guise of formal caregiving has allowed
ageing to become more than just a discourse or an object of medical gaze. There is a
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