Intimidade e Mercado: O cuidado de idosos em instituições de longa permanência

Abstract

This article discusses the commodification of intimate life that is the care of elderly people performed by salaried caregivers in the Long Term Institutions in Brazil. The study used ethnographies, participant observation, interviews with caregivers, with elderly people and with the leaders of the institutions in the Federal District. It focused on the work of caregivers and on their interactions with the elderly people. It examines the "feminine habitus of care" as a set of affective and moral dispositions acquired by women in the family group. In their work caregivers recreate these dispositions, during their interactions with the elderly in the Long Term Institutions. The study found that the imposition of a taylorist work organization in the institutions prevents the realization of the care work. Care work requires caregiver's technical competence and further more a complement of emotions and morality.