Month: May 2019

Death Talk and Loss Talk in an Age of Longevity – A Conversation with the facilitators of Talk

Posted on by wenjing.zhang

Dying Matters Awareness Week (13th -19th May 2019) aims to promote conversations on dying, death and bereavement. On 14thMay 2019, a cross-disciplinary research team, which includes academics from across the University of Bristol  (School of Education, School for Policy Studies and Bristol Medical School) and a lay expert in patient and public involvement, marked Dying Matters Awareness Week with an event on ‘Death Talk and Loss Talk in an Age of Longevity’. This involved a variety of facilitators of death talk and loss talk across a diverse range of settings:

  • Project Eileen, a multi-media project aimed at changing attitudes towards death and grief among young people;
  • Arnos Vale Cemetery, host to the inspiring annual 4-day event ‘Life, Death and the Rest’;
  • Anchor Hanover, provider of specialist housing and care for people in later life in England;
  • Forget Me Not Pet Crematorium, provider of professional, dignified, sympathetic Pet Cremation Service;
  • Bristol Ageing Better, a partnership of individuals and organisations working together to reduce isolation and loneliness among older people in Bristol.
  • Bristol Dementia Wellbeing Service, personal dementia support for Bristol people delivered by the Bristol Dementia Partnership, which brings together Alzheimer’s Society and Devon Partnership NHS Trust.
  • Lyn Heathcote, who is a Funeral Celebrant & End of life Doula.

This project and event was funded by the Elizabeth Blackwell Institute’s Research Strand on Bioethics, Biolaw and Biosociety. It aims at understanding what kinds of conversations can and do take place in an ‘age of longevity’, in which a certain cultural expectation of ‘a good long life’ is matched by expectations that we will make adequate preparations over the life-course for living that good long life as independently as possible.

From left to right:  Hannah Rumble (School of Education, University of Bristol); Karen West (School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol); Louise Poffley (Project Eileen); Helen Manchester (School of Education, University of Bristol);  Annabelle Shaw (Project Eileen); Liz Lloyd (School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol).

The event started with the following talks: Karen West (School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol) introduced the project and highlighted recent calls from policy makers and cultural leaders for structured and facilitated conversations about death, dying and loss.  In order to stimulate group discussion, Liz Lloyd (School for Policy Studies) presented some findings of people’s thoughts about death at ‘a near but uncertain time’ from her recent research on ‘Maintaining Dignity in Later Life’.

The discussions covered a wide range of topics including:

  • the challenges for facilitators in starting conversations about death and dying and the use of artefacts in facilitating this;
  • how we regard ourselves as dying as such when expectations of a very long life are becoming the norm;
  • the different ways in which people engage with their own and others’ death and dying;
  • the ways in which the death of pets can trigger conversations about human death;
  • how children are often more inclined to talk about death and dying than their adult guardians and representatives; the dangers of glamorising death and dying;
  • and the ways in which certain marginalised groups are excluded from participating in talking about death and dying, such as those with dementia or the homeless.

As Melanie Chalder (Bristol Medical School) noted, the conversations illustrated how – with input and guidance from people who are accustomed to talking about loss and death – some of the most challenging of subjects we face in everyday life can be handled with openness, warmth and even humour.

The discussion groups.

We were delighted that such a diverse audience wanted to participate in the discussions. We are also very pleased that the facilitators of death talk and loss talk expressed their wish to continue talking to each other about these issues.  The Bristol team hopes to be engaging further with these groups and other members of the general public over the coming months as we work towards developing a research proposal to explore these questions and issues further.

Project team: Karen West, Melanie Chalder, Hannah Rumble, Helen Manchester, Kim Harman, Ailsa Cameron, Jon Symonds, Randall Smith, Liz Lloyd, Ellie Johnson, Alex Vickery, Wenjing Zhang.

If you would like to find out more information about the project or join us, please email: wenjing.zhang@bristol.ac.uk or Karen.west@bristol.ac.uk.

Upcoming event:Migration, Ageing and Digital Kinning

Posted on by helen.manchester

Migration, Ageing and Digital Kinning: The role of distant care support networks in experiences of ageing well

11 June 2019, 12.00 PM – 11 June 2019, 1.00 PM

Prof. Loretta Baldassar

Room 4.05/06, School of Education, 35 Berkeley Square, Bristol, BS8 1JA

This event is part of the School of Education’s ‘Bristol Conversations in Education’ seminar series. It is presented in conjunction with the Faculty Ageing and the Lifecourse group. These seminars are free and open to the public.

Speaker: Prof. Loretta Baldassar

High rates of migration contribute to the dispersal of support networks across distance and national borders. For older people reliant on informal care for social support, this creates a high risk of increased social isolation. In this paper, we examine the importance of distant support networks maintained with communication technologies, through a process of ‘digital kinning’. We draw on data from a qualitative research project conducted in Australia (2016-19) with over 100 older migrants (55+) born in eight countries comprising ethnographic interviews recording participants’ histories of migration, experiences of ageing, care and support networks and uses of technology and network maps comparing experiences and practices of proximate and distant support networks. Results show that older migrants in Australia overcome significant obstacles to maintain their informal support networks across distance through practices of ‘digital kinning’. The geographically distant social networks they maintain are essential sources of social connection and support, cultural identity, and protection of social identity. Although essential to the wellbeing of older migrants, distant support networks and the digital kinning practices that sustain them receive little attention from policy makers and health practitioners. We argue that organisations concerned with care of older people must improve awareness of distant support networks and support digital kinning practices. This could range from including distant kin in healthcare plans to prioritising digital inclusion initiatives.

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Contact information

Emma Rossiter

Upcoming event: Negotiating intergenerational relations in a changing demographic landscape

Posted on by helen.manchester
Date: Wed, 5 June 2019, 16:00 – 18:30
Location: Room 3.30, Wills Memorial Building
Queen’s Road
University of Bristol
Bristol
BS8 1RJ
Please do sign up on the EventBrite if you are able to come and share widely.
Details
The Ageing And The Lifecourse Research Group (Faculty Of Social Sciences And Law) Invites You To A Keynote Speech OnNegotiatingIntergenerational Relations In A Changing Demographic LandscapeBy Simon Biggs, Professor Of Gerontology & Social Policy, Melbourne University, Australia, With Discussants Ann-Kristin Boström (Jönköping University) And Gregory Mannion (University Of Stirling).
 
The demographics of population ageing are well known, yet cultural adaptation has been slow to gain momentum, beyond notions of continuing to stay as one is. Current narratives include extended working, mid-lifestyle consumption or resisting changing lifecourse priorities. It is suggested that cultural adaptation contains at least two principal challenges: finding novel purpose and contribution from a long life that are connected to changing lifecourse priorities, plus negotiating a situation where generational groups are becoming approximately the same size.
 
A key element in understanding intergenerational relations would be the relative capacity to put oneself in the place of the age-other and this talk will examine the idea of generational intelligence in this context. A number of tensions will be examined as a means of interrogating this increasingly contested landscape, each of which have implications on how age relations can be negotiated and new forms of active engagement might be created: between positive and negative forms of discontinuity, positive forms of othering, within-age and between-age thinking, and, present and lifecourse centred perspectives. Each would contribute toward the conceptual tools we need to make generationally informed judgements about age-related interventions and to future-proof policy and other initiatives from an intergenerational perspective.
 
Registration will take place from 15:45 with the talk beginning at 16:00. Drinks and nibbles will be served following the talk and Q&A session from 17:30.This is a FREE event but places should be booked. When registering please let us know if you have any access requirements.For more information or to register over the phone please contact myself directly or Dr Wenjing Zhang. Email: wenjing.zhang@bristol.ac.uk Telephone: 0117 331 0732.