The project will focus on the relationships between Italian homebound elderly people, their family caregivers and the hired professional caretakers (when present) and how these changed following the current pandemic outbreak. I will analyze how COVID 19 disrupted daily routines and situations related to caring for homebound elders as well as how the pandemic affected the entwined lives of the stakeholders, taking into account financial, cultural and social status of each. Given the already strenuous situation families that must care for one or more disabled elders live in, we can postulate that the pandemic outbreak upset the delicate social and economic balances devised by caregivers and caretakers, often result of difficult previous negotiations. For family caregivers, who do not share a home with their relatives, former strategies of daily or weekly visits may not apply anymore, given the government lockdown measures and the extreme vulnerability of elderly people, seeing how they are especially affected by the virus. I will also, therefore, examine how being isolated from their families (and left with professional caretakers or in care homes) affected the elderly. On the other hand, I will try to consider how risk-taking behaviors from family members, regarding social distancing and lockdown measures, came into play out of concern and to avoid the insurgence of depression and other mental health issues in the older adults during the pandemic. On the subject of the relationship between family caregivers and professional caretakers, I will focus on cultural and economic struggles exacerbated during the pandemic crisis, trying to observe how families that relied on external help coped with being left without aid or, on the contrary, how foreign professionals caretakers that were let go, but could not return to their home countries, confronted the situation, especially since domestic aid for the elderly is usually provided accommodation for the duration of the job.
Anthropology of ageing, the way it is thought of in the XXI century, is a fairly new field of study in anthropology. In the past, scholars have frequently paid attention to the changing image of the elderly (mostly in indigenous contexts and developing countries) and have only recently started, given the ageing population of Western countries in particular, to shift their focus on issues related to old age in urban contexts. One of the main issues is that most people become elders while still taking care of disabled and homebound elderly relatives; this (paired with work related issues, as well as the tendency of the nuclearization of family) has led to a massive surge in the employment of permanent domestic aid for these elders, the accommodation in care structures or, when not financially possible, in a complete change in domestic strategies of the individual and the family, having to take care of one or more disabled people by themselves.
Many studies have been carried out on these phenomena, but, undeniably, COVID 19 has created new dynamics and situations that are worth examining. Financial problems, due to the lockdown, are affecting the employment of professional caretakers, some of whom were forced to repatriate; isolation from family members and disruption of routines may cause a series of mental and physical health problems in the elderly population, most of whom had recently accepted and accustomed themselves to an already precarious and limited way of life; the use of new technologies is not available to everyone, therefore, in some cases, telecommunications with family members and even doctors may not be possible. This situation may, in some cases, have led to risk taking behaviors in family caregivers who were willing or forced to visit their isolated family members, in order to avoid mental and physical problems, thus creating situations where contagion could spread.
Another interesting analysis that could further advance the state of the art is that related to government and health care personnel behavior regarding RSA structures and how this influenced the lives of people who had chosen a care home, thinking their family members would be safe and taken care of. Further advancements can be achieved in the study of elderly people's perception in media, in politics, by the general population and, lastly, self-perception, based on life stories, experiences and the image perpetrated by the rest of society. This, in relation to the pandemic outbreak, could lead to important considerations on the disabled non-autonomous elderly as people, their role in society and the concept of expendability during a crisis.
COVID 19 disrupted balances, previously negotiated strategies, ways of living and financial situations in families that were already living a difficult situation; at the same time, it altered various common notions about the elderly, disposability, essentiality and expendability. This study aims to observe and analyze these issues and struggles, as well as propose, with the aid of specialized structures and personnel, applicative outcomes, in the form of cooperative projects with health care structures or associations having to do with the elderly.