Relational citizenship: supporting embodied selfhood and relationality in dementia care

Abstract

We draw on findings from a mixed-method study of specialised red-nosed elder-clowns in a long-term care facility to advance a model of ‘relational citizenship’ for individuals with dementia. Relational citizenship foregrounds the reciprocal nature of engagement and the centrality of capacities, senses, and experiences of bodies to the exercise of human agency and interconnectedness. We critically examine elder-clown strategies and techniques to illustrate how relational citizenship can be supported and undermined at the micro level of direct care through a focus on embodied expressions of creativity and sexuality. We identify links between aesthetic enrichment and relational practices in art, music and imagination. Relational citizenship offers an important rethinking of notions of selfhood, entitlement, and reciprocity that are central to a sociology of dementia, and it also provides new ethical grounds to explore how residents’ creative and sexual expression can be cultivated in the context of long-term care.