Voicing care: Discourse, identity and the making of family caregivers
Item
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Title
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Voicing care: Discourse, identity and the making of family caregivers
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:59ab0b7c6949:10077
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identifier
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10189
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Creator
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Dobbins, Jennifer F.,
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Contributor
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Suzanne C. Ouellette
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Date
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2009
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Social psychology | Personality psychology | Individual & family studies | caregiving | family caregivers | Internet | narrative | positioning | support group
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Abstract
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Caring for a loved one was once considered a family matter - invisible work nested within the private sphere of home. Current advances in medical technology, altered illness patterns, extended life spans, and changes in traditional family structure have rendered family caregiving increasingly visible. Psychological/medical literatures on family caregivers have traditionally focused on caregiver stress, strain, and burden; however, people actually experience caring for loved ones as part of a lived life. Research tools and perspectives that reflect the embeddedness of caregiving in social life are urgently needed.;This qualitative study is based on the construct of caregiver voice. Voice is the manifestation of a given orientation toward caregiving and is used to explore the ways in which family caregivers create/negotiate/understand the caregiver role through their interactions with others. Three caregiver voices are discussed: Caregiver as Patient, Caregiver as Kin, and Caregiver as Advocate. Each voice represents a different conceptualization of the family caregiver as it emerges from the intersection of historical influences, social organization, cultural meaning and personal experience.;Utilizing multiple read method (Brown, Debold, Tappan, and Gilligan, 1989) informed by positioning theory (Davies and Harre, 1990), the study explores the patterns and positionings of these three voices as they emerge through the exchanges of a virtual support group for family caregivers. Posts made by group participants over a 6-month period (N=138) are analyzed for levels of caregiver labeling and identity, and for the presence and prevalence of the three caregiver voices. Simple summary statistics are used to describe patterns of interaction between and across the voices. Finally, a conversational thread (an original post and eight responses to the post) is analyzed how the Patient, Kin and Advocate voices appear, disappear, overlap and counterbalance each other over the course of an exchange. Key findings are used to support voice as a useful construct in the study of family caregiving, and the utility of positioning theory combined with multiple read method in the examination of caregiver narratives. Implications for future research are discussed.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Psychology
