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Published in: European Journal of Ageing 4/2017

01-12-2017 | Original Investigation

The emergence of care facilities in Thailand for older German-speaking people: structural backgrounds and facility operators as transnational actors

Authors: Désirée Bender, Tina Hollstein, Cornelia Schweppe

Published in: European Journal of Ageing | Issue 4/2017

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Abstract

This paper presents findings from an ethnographic study of old age care facilities for German-speaking people in Thailand. It analyses the conditions and processes behind the development and specific designs of such facilities. It first looks at the intertwinement, at the socio-structural level, of different transborder developments in which the facilities’ emergence is embedded. Second, it analyses the processes that accompany the emergence, development and organisation of these facilities at the local level. In this regard, it points out the central role of the facility operators as transnational actors who mediate between different frames of reference and groups of actors involved in these facilities. It concludes that the processes of mediation and intertwining are an important and distinctive feature of the emergence of these facilities, necessitated by the fact that, although the facilities are located in Thailand, their ‘markets’ are in the German-speaking countries of their target groups.
Footnotes
1
The research project is part of a larger research cluster ‘Transnational Ageing’ at the University of Mainz, Germany, with the current research focus on ‘Mobilities, old age and care’ (MOCA).
 
2
The real name of the facility was anonymised by the authors of this paper.
 
3
One reason for this protest was the fear of ‘Alzheimer’s disease being infectious’.
 
4
He states: ‘You do have to have a good look at which person will fit this position’. He says that there are, for example, some carers that are ‘particularly suitable for the basic care of someone (…), whereas others [would] prefer to have challenges, people that are a bit more difficult, mobile perhaps’. Often he would ‘just have to try it out […] but usually it works out fine’.
 
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Metadata
Title
The emergence of care facilities in Thailand for older German-speaking people: structural backgrounds and facility operators as transnational actors
Authors
Désirée Bender
Tina Hollstein
Cornelia Schweppe
Publication date
01-12-2017
Publisher
Springer Netherlands
Published in
European Journal of Ageing / Issue 4/2017
Print ISSN: 1613-9372
Electronic ISSN: 1613-9380
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10433-017-0444-1

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