Dementia Care Work in Singapore: Embodied Relations and Power Dynamics

Based on research at a dementia day-care center in Singapore, I discuss how embodied care relations proceed amidst cultural expectations on aging, dementia, and care work. Engaging with approaches that conceptualize "care" as either empathy or control, I argue that care between older people with dementia, their families, and care workers can be understood as a reiterative, dialogic process whereby care participants strive to keep pace with each other, however briefly, due to cognitive decline, care workers' own limitations, and particular family difficulties. Care vacillates between practices of control, surveillance, and recognition, and comprises dynamic rather than enduring power relations.