TU#01 Insight - Imagination, Covid-19 and elder care

Talking Uncertainty

The absence of elders’ caregivers appears as an elephant in the room throughout Kazubowski-Houston’s dramatic storytelling. How can we put things in perspective in terms of working with imaginative ethnography and elderly care in the context of the COVID-19 reality? Elders in many countries have been socially isolated and alone for a long time, so the “COVID reality” existed for many of us even before the pandemic started. In the context of the recent COVID outbreaks in long-term care facilities, we have been speculating the death of so many elders in Canada and around the world, and somehow this is considered normal. As an improvisatory ethnographic tool, imagination has often been romanticized in anthropology. Although it can be powerful, it can be equally disempowering and damaging to our interlocutors. The outcome of imaginative ethnography may not necessarily be what we had hoped for or anticipated, especially during these challenging times.

Read insights from the talk here: https://www.urgentemergent.org/talking-uncertainty/kazubowski-houston.

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