By Brianne Wenning, Lisa Dikomitis, Kay Polidano and Christian Mallen, Keele University ‘We certainly FaceTime or Houseparty our daughters so we can see the grandchildren. We chat every day with them. So that can be half an hour or however long we’ve got’. The 73-year-old woman, living in England (UK), shared her experiences of the […]
Category: Age of COVID
The Other Side of COVID-19: Ostracization and Guilt among Older Patients in India
By Anindita Chatterjee, Postdoctoral Research Assistant, Department of Anthropology, Brandeis University Anamika landed in Dubai on an October 2020 afternoon, and called her mother, Arpita, to let her know about her safe arrival.[1] Anamika’s brother, Mainak, resides in Pune. Arpita is 67 and her husband Manoshij is 77. Despite their old age, they preferred to live […]
Window Work: Framing Eldercare in the Age of COVID-19
By Kristina Grünenberg, Line Hillersdal and Jonas Winther, Department of Anthropology and Center for Healthy Aging, University of Copenhagen. In this blogpost, we draw from our current fieldwork on the island of Ærø, a place which has branded itself as “the digital island”[1], to explore how care workers tinker with screens during the COVID-19 pandemic […]
Going Viral: Metaphors for Managing an Emerging “Infodemic”
By Jonah S. Rubin and Abby Holloway, Knox College In February 2020, as public health authorities struggled to develop guidance for a rapidly spreading coronavirus, WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros declared: “We’re not just fighting an epidemic, we’re fighting an infodemic” (WHO 2020a). In response, the WHO quickly put together a team of “mythbusters” dedicated to […]
Risky business: how older ‘at risk’ people in Denmark evaluated their situated risk during the COVID-19 pandemic
By Amy Clotworthy and Rudi G.J. Westendorp Center for Healthy Aging (CEHA), Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen The COVID-19 pandemic has presented us with a unique opportunity to examine how societies perceive urgent biological risk, and how they manage population groups who may be susceptible to such risks (cf. Alaszewski 2015). When the World […]
New traditions: A reflection on changed Easter traditions
By Danielle Corrie In this latest post in our ‘The Age of COVID-19’ series, author Danielle Corrie reflects on how pandemic-related restrictions changed her family’s Easter traditions. In doing so, she highlights how the traditions are kept alive through intergenerational connections and efforts. Easter comes and goes each autumn in Australia, yet this Easter (2020) […]
As visiting restrictions continue, elders in Danish plejehjem are experiencing a ‘stolen spring’
By Amy Clotworthy, Center for Healthy Aging (CEHA), University of Copenhagen (Denmark) First published in 1940, Hans Scherfig’s The Stolen Spring (Det Forsømte Forår) is both a satirical crime novel and a wry social commentary. Through his description of a school’s sociocultural dynamics and how administrators handle the murder of a teacher, Scherfig pointedly criticises particular […]
It takes two to tango
By Miriam Verhage, Lucia Thielman, Lieke de Kock, Jolanda Lindenberg This blog post is based on a phone-based qualitative interview project in the Netherlands. During April 2020, we interviewed 59 seniors about their experiences during the COVID-19 crisis and their views on the portrayal of senior adults in the national media. The participants were between […]
In and outside the nursing home: On the (im)possibilities of meaningful contact while being held apart
By Natashe Lemos Dekker, Laura Vermeulen, and Jeannette Pols Weer n dag zonder jou te voelen. De alzheimer-kelk moet helemaal leeg Maanden los van elkaar; corona ons kruis, heeft elkaar doen verlaten Nog nooit zo-lang gescheiden; nog nooit zo dicht bij de dood Nooit-zo voelde ik de kracht van aanraken, nu het er niet […]
On Vulnerability, Resilience, and Age: Older Americans Reflect on the Pandemic
By Sarah Lamb, with Ji Chen, Claire Ogden, Tirtza Schramm, and Lin Xinbei Every morning, Americans wake up to fresh news of the heavy toll the coronavirus pandemic is exerting upon vulnerable older people—from the likelihood of developing a more severe form of Covid-19, to the risks of isolation and mental health problems as they […]