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A Taste of Family and Community: An Ethnographic Exploration of Care, Aging, and Food In San Francisco's Oldest Neighborhood

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posted on 2022-07-12, 02:06 authored by Erika CarrilloErika Carrillo

  

This project is at the intersections of the anthropology of care, aging and food. The research is conducted in San Francisco among aging Latinos and explores their care relationships. I examine how people define and negotiate what is considered “good” care and “good” food in a society with a prevailing “successful aging” paradigm. The project examines how care is complex and multifaceted and demonstrates how food can be used as a socio-material lens to study care. Food is a part of daily life that is laden with moral, social and political meaning which makes it ideal for studying care interactions. The research takes place in various community settings in San Francisco’s Mission District. These community settings include a local senior center and its food program, the homes of older people and other spaces of significance to the participants (e.g., grocery stores, restaurants, and other neighborhood places). Multiple ethnographic methods such as participant observation, interviews and neighborhood walks were used to collect data. By examining care relationships, I found that caregivers had differing and competing ideas of morality in everyday care and what is “good” for older adults. Studying paradoxes of care and understanding how these tensions and contradictions play out is a crucial component of understanding care as a moral enterprise. Key findings show that many people are not recognized as “caregivers” yet are providing important forms of care that sustain their families and communities. Additionally, studying “rule breaking” that seniors and others engaged in shed light on multiple interpretations of “good” aging care and food. Finally, in a neighborhood that has undergone so much transformation, many older adults saw the changes in the Mission as generally favorable, although those same shifts make the neighborhood relatively unwelcoming to seniors. This research broadens our understanding of “caregiving” by emphasizing the diverse forms of care that people provide throughout the life course.

History

Degree Type

  • Doctor of Philosophy

Department

  • Anthropology

Campus location

  • West Lafayette

Advisor/Supervisor/Committee Chair

Sherylyn Briller

Additional Committee Member 2

Ellen R Gruenbaum

Additional Committee Member 3

Jennifer L. Johnson

Additional Committee Member 4

Yuson Jung