Transfigurations of aging

To date, most social anthropological studies on aging in African contexts focus on care for poor older people provided by related others. The focus of this article is different as it focuses on older people with better financial means than the average: civil servants belonging to Dar es Salaam’s middle class. Furthermore, this contribution shifts the focus from care provided through related others to practices of everyday self-care, the care that these older people provide for themselves with the help of relatives in Tanzania and the USA. In order to stay healthy and cope with diagnosed chronic conditions, older participants in this study engage in physical exercises, eat ‘good food’, and go for regular medical check-ups. This article argues that these health-promoting self-care practices of older urban dwellers reflect changing experiences of aging, health, and care, and point to transfigurations of the social imaginary of aging in Dar es Salaam’s middle class

The New Old Urbanites. Care and Transnational Aging in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

This PhD thesis is about older people’s everyday lives in changing urban milieus of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and their imaginations about kuzeeka vizuri (aging well). Tanzania’s urban hub of Dar es Salaam belongs worldwide to those cities with the fastest population increase in recent years. At the same time, the country’s socialist past makes Dar es Salaam a particular place for older urban dwellers as the idea that only the productive workforce is allowed to live in the city sticks in the head of some people to this day. Based on fifteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in Tanzania and the USA between 2012 and 2015, this PhD thesis therefore explores how a “first generation” of older people who decided to stay in the city grows old. Through the lens of social differentiation, it analyzes how people above the age of sixty years live their everyday lives and age differently in different social milieus of the city. With a theoretical focus on agency, it highlights that older people’s experiences of the urban range between perceiving the city as a place of challenges and opportunities. By focusing on a former civil servants’ milieu belonging to Dar es Salaam’s middle-income strata, this PhD thesis further explores the ways in which the retired inhabitants engage in everyday self-care and thereby draws parallels to the international discourse around “successful aging.” The PhD thesis further argues that the provision of everyday self-care and relational care is largely dependent on the perceived health condition of an older person. In doing so, it focuses not only on the older people’s own perspectives, but also includes their caregivers. Through a multi-sited approach, this PhD thesis furthermore investigates on how children or relatives living in the USA are engaged in transnational exchanges and shape their parents’ aging experiences. At the same time, the engagement in “transnational triangles of care” depends on these children’s possibilities as (il)legal migrants in the USA. This PhD thesis contributes to a body of literature that perceives older urbanites not as passive recipients of care, but as older people who actively engage in care practices that they also perform for themselves—with the help of others. It thereby underlines that although urbanization and population aging are said to weaken family structures and care, some older people actually perceive them to be more intact, particularly in the city. Finally, it claims that studying old age in the city may contribute to a new perspective on the city—through the eyes of the new old urbanites

WhatsApp in Ethnographic Research: Methodological Reflections on New Edges of the Field

The mobile phone and the increasing worldwide use of smartphones with applications such as the instant messenger WhatsApp are revolutionising ethnographic research. Drawing on transnational, ethnographic research in Tanzania, the USA and Oman, this paper shows that WhatsApp constitutes a valuable tool in ethnographic research in three important fields of interaction and communication: first, between researchers and informants simultaneously in different places; secondly, as a tool to exchange with field assistants; and thirdly between researchers. Building on expanding theoretical reflections on transnational networks and practices this paper adds new insights to corresponding methodological consequences. It critically reflects on the usefulness of integrating WhatsApp into ethnographic research. It argues that by incorporating such technologies we can not only keep an actor-centred focus, but also support methodologically the theoretical shift from understanding the field as a ‘location’ to grasping the field as a ‘network’ – or even a transnational social field

Research Assistants: Invisible but Indispensable in Ethnographic Research

Until recently, anthropological literature on the collaboration between the researcher and his/her assistant(s) was rather scarce – although these helpers in the field are highly involved in our knowledge production. In PhD theses, where sole authorship is required for academic degrees, the work with assistants is mentioned briefly in the methodology parts, but then disappears again in the published books. Working with research assistants raises questions of author- ship, authority and ethical considerations in general (Galizia and Schneider 2005: 8, Gupta 2014). In this contribution we argue that collaborations with research assistants strongly influence our data, its analysis and finally our ethnographic texts. Hence, we promote an ethnographic writing that thoroughly reflects working with research assistants and makes this collaboration more explicit

A Novel Risk and Crisis Communication Platform to Bridge the Gap Between Policy Makers and the Public in the Context of the COVID-19 Crisis (PubliCo): Protocol for a Mixed Methods Study

Since the end of 2019, COVID-19 has had a significant impact on people around the globe. As governments institute more restrictive measures, public adherence could decrease and discontent may grow. Providing high-quality information and countering fake news are important. However, we also need feedback loops so that government officials can refine preventive measures and communication strategies. Policy makers need information-preferably based on real-time data-on people's cognitive, emotional, and behavioral reactions to public health messages and restrictive measures. PubliCo aims to foster effective and tailored risk and crisis communication as well as provide an assessment of the risks and benefits of prevention and control measures, since their effectiveness depends on public trust and cooperation.; Our project aims to develop a tool that helps tackle the COVID-19 infodemic, with a focus on enabling a nuanced and in-depth understanding of public perception. The project adopts a transdisciplinary multistakeholder approach, including participatory citizen science.; We aim to combine a literature and media review and analysis as well as empirical research using mixed methods, including an online survey and diary-based research, both of which are ongoing and continuously updated. Building on real-time data and continuous data collection, our research results will be highly adaptable to the evolving situation.; As of September 2021, two-thirds of the proposed tool is operational. The current development cycles are focusing on analytics, user experience, and interface refinement. We have collected a total of 473 responses through PubliCo Survey and 22 diaries through PubliCo Diaries.; Pilot data show that PubliCo is a promising and efficient concept for bidirectional risk and crisis communication in the context of public health crises. Further data are needed to assess its function at a larger scale or in the context of an issue other than COVID-19.; DERR1-10.2196/33653

The Communication Chain of Genetic Risk: Analyses of Narrative Data Exploring Proband-Provider and Proband-Family Communication in Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer.

Low uptake of genetic services among members of families with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer (HBOC) suggests limitations of proband-mediated communication of genetic risk. This study explored how genetic information proceeds from healthcare providers to probands and from probands to relatives, from the probands' perspectives. Using a grounded-theory approach, we analyzed narrative data collected with individual interviews and focus groups from a sample of 48 women identified as carriers of HBOC-associated pathogenic variants from three linguistic regions of Switzerland. The findings describe the "communication chain", confirming the difficulties of proband-mediated communication. Provider-proband communication is impacted by a three-level complexity in the way information about family communication is approached by providers, received by probands, and followed-up by the healthcare system. Probands' decisions regarding disclosure of genetic risk are governed by dynamic and often contradictory logics of action, interconnected with individual and family characteristics, eventually compelling probands to engage in an arbitrating process. The findings highlight the relevance of probands' involvement in the communication of genetic risk to relatives, suggesting the need to support them in navigating the complexity of family communication rather than replacing them in this process. Concrete actions at the clinical and health system levels are needed to improve proband-mediated communication