Markings: Boundaries and Borders in Dementia Care Units

Abstract

This visual essay discusses material markings in a nursing home and the boundaries and borders negotiated by them. Based on participant observations made through in-situ drawings in three dementia care units, I present two types of markings. The first kind of marking involves how other people wrote the names of residents on things as a way to distinguish them. The second type of marking involves how residents reconfigured materialities in different situations to make a space for themselves and/or other residents. I suggest that the ways in which seemingly trivial markings become entangled with residents’ identities and agencies require ethical responsiveness.