Research Areas
At CIRAC we investigate the lived experiences of older adults and their care networks as technology increasingly permeates our collective experience of aging. The capturing, storage, processing, and management of data generated by devices about older adults and the impact on privacy and autonomy deserves special attention.
The way we experience aging is shaped by cultural representations. In order to deconstruct these images, stereotypes, and narratives of what it means to age, grow old, and be old, we at CIRAC critique cultural images in media, film, and literature.
Narrative Medicine as well as Health Humanities form an important research pillar at CIRAC. They provide humanities-based knowledge to researchers and practitioners in the health sector. In order to challenge reductionary images of aging and care, these efforts enrich structures and actions of the healthcare system with individual experiences, narratives, and life situations and align them with a multifaceted anthropology.
A caring society needs spaces and places to reflect on the conditions of a good life in old age and to fight for a just and democratic organization of care (Tronto 2013). It is essential to reflect on the existential questions of growing old, care, and dying in terms of their political contingencies, and to discuss questions of systemic changes within care structures.
The social organization of care is shaped by people's social entanglements and their embeddedness in their respective cultural, organizational, political, as well as spatial and natural environments. How and where we live is crucial for our health and for caring for each other in critical situations of our lives, in old age, and dying.
