Nursing-home residents caring for each other: Challenging the care giver-recipient binary

Care in nursing homes is often perceived as one-way: caregivers (staff and family) provide care, and residents receive it. Findings from my ongoing critical ethnography of a nursing home challenge this binary. Guided by critical disability studies and using observation, interviews, and reflection, the ethnography prioritizes the perspective of residents. Central to the ethnography is my relative Helen (a pseudonym) who lives in an American nursing home. In this presentation, I talk about the ways that residents care for each other, and the implications for nursing-home policy and practice.