The limits and ethics of autonomy and choice in older people who are care-dependent

This special end-of-year seminar brings together three researchers from different disciplinary backgrounds whose research draws attention to the limits and ethics of autonomy and choice in older people who require assistance with everyday personal care, particularly transgressive intimate care.

Researchers present findings illuminating institutional care cultures that privilege practices of containment, restriction, and restraint and inadvertently undermine the autonomy of people who are care-dependent.

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About the presenters

Professor Joan Ostaszkiewicz is a Principal Research Fellow and Director of Aged Care at the National Ageing Research Institute (NARI). She coordinates research focusing on ageing and aged care, including continence caregiving, dementia caregiving, social support, quality of care and aged care systems support and evaluation. She is a Registered Nurse and Adjunct Professor at Federation University.

Professor Katie Featherstone is Professor of Sociology and Medicine and Director of the Geller Institute of Ageing and Memory, University of West London. Her ethnographic research addresses improving care quality for people living with dementia in Social Care and NHS hospital settings. Funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research, her work examines institutional cultures of care, focusing on resistance to care, continence care, and restrictive practices. She founded and leads an NIHR-funded early career researcher mentoring scheme and collaborates with Dementia UK and Alzheimer’s Research UK.

Dr Tiina Vaittinen is University Researcher in Tampere University, Finland. She is a transdisciplinary social scientist and ethnographer focusing on social justice and political economies of health and social care. She leads the Pad Project, developing holistically sustainable continence care. She has developed an ethics of needs extending feminist ethics of care, with particular interest in corporeal ethics, politics, and economics of dementia care. She co-edits a book series on feminist perspectives on peace, justice, and violence with Catia C. Confortini and Shweta Singh.