"I am the household head now!" Gender Aspects of Out-migration for Labour in Nepal

Out-migration in Nepal is a highly gendered process: Men go away to work in foreign countries and women stay in the villages, man - aging agricultural work, doing the household works and taking care of children and elders. When husbands migrate, work routines must be re-organised among the remaining household members and deci - sion-making competencies shift. The study concentrates on changes in women’s and men’s workloads and participation in decision-mak - ing induced by out-migration for labour. The findings reveal manifold dynamics in the study area of Kalabang village in Nepal’s mid-hill zone. These dynamics have ambivalent effects on gender relations, some leading to an empowerment of women and others widening gender disparities. The analysis clearly shows that factors such as age or posi - tion within the household considerably impact the effects of migration on the home-staying wome

Personal benefits of older adults engaging in a participatory action research (PAR) project

Participatory action research (PAR) is the process of conducting research with people rather than for them and is perceived as an empowering activity for older adults who participate in it. However, there is little evidence that outlines and explains the reasons why older adults engage in PAR. Thus, the aim of this study was to better understand the personal benefits for older adults participating in PAR. We based our study on the experiences of four older adults who volunteered for CareComLabs, a Swiss-based PAR project, for more than two years. A constructivist grounded theory design was used to explore the benefits of participating in CareComLabs by conducting in-depth, semi-structured interviews. The analysis yielded four categories of personal benefits of participating in CareComLabs: (a) enriching relationships; (b) broadening horizons for older age; (c) keeping in touch with one's profession; and (d) interacting in a nurturing community. Our findings may have implications for policies and frameworks focused on the identification of the potential of participatory action research as a community resource

Technik unterstützt Leben im Alter

Technische Innovation ermöglicht ein selbständiges Leben zuhause – auch im hohen Alter und wenn für die Bewältigung des Alltags Hilfe benötigt wird. Es existieren bereits vielfältige in die Alltagsumgebung integrierte Technologien. Sie werden aber bisher kaum angewendet. Das internationale Projekt IBH Living Lab "Active Assisted Living" widmet sich gezielt der Überwindung dieser Anwendungsbarrieren. Careum Forschung ist aktives Mitglied des grenzüberschreitenden Konsortiums

Of odysseys and miracles: A narrative approach on therapeutic mobilities for ayurveda treatment

In the past two decades, health care has become a global market and transnational practice. An emerging body of literature examines the astounding variety of drivers, conditions, and experiences. However, the question of how traveling abroad for treatment emerges as an option and takes shape in people's illness trajectories has gained little attention thus far. This article attends to this gap by following the stories of people with chronic conditions who travel to India for Ayurveda treatment out of dissatisfaction with local biomedical health care. This study expands the focus of current research on transnational therapeutic mobilities in three ways: (1) by shifting the attention from being a foreign patient or medical traveler to becoming one, (2) by integrating quests for other-than-biomedical therapies, and (3) by applying a narrative approach to the field. Results show that apart from social, human, and financial resources, it takes certain patient-subjectivities to mobilize patients across borders and healing systems

Carpe diem? Herausforderung aktives Rentenalter

Die Zeit nach der Pensionierung birgt viele Chancen. Sie zu nutzen ist aber nicht einfach. Das Projekt «Carpe Diem» begleitet diesen Prozess der Neu-Orientierung unterstützend. Ein neuer Nachdiplomkurs soll Menschen zu Coaches für die nachberufliche Phase ausbilden. Aber welche Art von Begleitung brauchen Menschen in dieser Lebensphase überhaupt

Therapeutic mobilities

This Special Issue expands mobilities research through the idea of therapeutic mobilities, which consist of multiple movements of health-related things and beings, including, though not limited to, nurses, doctors, patients, narratives, information, gifts and pharmaceuticals. The therapeutic emerges from the encounters of mobile human and non-human, animate and inanimate subjects with places and environments and the individual components they are made of. We argue that an interaction of mobilities and health research offers essential benefits: First, it contributes to knowledge production in a field of tremendous social relevance, i.e. transnational health care. Second, it encourages researchers to think about and through functionally limited, ill, injured, mentally disturbed, unwell and hurting bodies. Third, it engages with the transformative character of mobilities at various scales. And fourth, it brings together different kinds of mobilities. The papers in this Special Issue contribute to three themes key for the therapeutic in mobilities: a) transformations (and stabilizations) of selves, bodies and positionalities, b) uneven im/mobilities and therapeutic inequalities and c) multiple and contingent im/mobilities. Therapeutic mobilities comprise practices and processes that are multi-layered and mutable; sometimes bizarre, sometimes ironic, often drastically uneven; sometimes brutal, sometimes beautiful – and sometimes all of this at the same time

Personal benefits of older adults engaging in a participatory action research (PAR) project.

Participatory action research (PAR) is the process of conducting research with people rather than for them and is perceived as an empowering activity for older adults who participate in it. However, there is little evidence that outlines and explains the reasons why older adults engage in PAR. Thus, the aim of this study was to better understand the personal benefits for older adults participating in PAR. We based our study on the experiences of four older adults who volunteered for CareComLabs, a Swiss-based PAR project, for more than two years. A constructivist grounded theory design was used to explore the benefits of participating in CareComLabs by conducting in-depth, semi-structured interviews. The analysis yielded four categories of personal benefits of participating in CareComLabs: (a) enriching relationships; (b) broadening horizons for older age; (c) keeping in touch with one's profession; and (d) interacting in a nurturing community. Our findings may have implications for policies and frameworks focused on the identification of the potential of participatory action research as a community resource

Co-producing knowledge

A key claim of participatory approaches from all theoretical and disciplinary provenances is the goal to build equal research partnerships of scholars and citizens and/or professionals to co-create knowledge that benefits communities or social groups. Valuing and integrating diverse sets of knowledge such as experiences from everyday life and professional practice, contextual, relational, and conceptual knowledge is commonly stated as requisite. However, few accounts exist that provide reflections let alone guidance on the complex doing of co-producing knowledge. The chapter contributes to the development of participatory approaches in ageing research by providing insights from a community-based participatory research project initiating caring communities as a social and health initiative to support ageing in place in Switzerland. We reflect on a three-year research partnership between academics from two universities and residents, professionals, and political leaders in one of the project’s pilot municipalities. We explore which different sets of knowledge emerge in moments of cooperation and how they interact. We identify two forms of interaction between sets of knowledge: (1) working in parallel on clearly assigned tasks and (2) getting into each other to create novel solutions. Participatory research is well positioned to create momentum for a move from mode 1 to mode 2 production of knowledge with inspiration and information flowing in both ways between science and society

Digitalisierung in der Pflege zwischen Technikinnovation und Beziehungsarbeit

Pflegerisches Handeln besteht zu grossen Teilen in der Handhabe (digitaler) medizinischer Messgeräte und Hilfsmittel. Dennoch werden Technologie und Pflege oft als Gegensätze wahrgenommen. Die neus-ten Entwicklungen der Digitalisierung findet man in der Pflege tatsächlich erst vereinzelt. Wir argumentie-ren, dass es unter gegenwärtigen Bedingungen gute Gründe für diese Zurückhaltung gibt und plädieren dafür, sie als Einladung zu verstehen, um Technik und Pflege von Grund auf neu zu denken, nämlich ausgehend von Pflegepraktiken, statt von Technikinnovationen