‘The Living Death of Alzheimer’s’ Versus ‘Take a Walk to Keep Dementia at Bay’: Representations of Dementia in Print Media and Carer Discourse

Understanding dementia is a pressing social challenge. This paper draws on the ‘Dementia talking: care conversation and communication’ project which aims to understand how talk about, and to, people living with dementia is constructed. In this paper I draw on the construction of dementia manifest in two data-sets - a corpus of 350 recent UK national newspaper articles and qualitative data derived from in-depth interviews with informal carers. These data were analysed using a thematic discursive approach. A ‘panic-blame’ framework was evident in much of the print media coverage. Dementia was represented in catastrophic terms as a ‘tsunami’ and ‘worse than death’, juxtaposed with coverage of individualistic behavioural change and lifestyle recommendations to ‘stave off’ the condition. Contrary to this media discourse, in carers’ talk there was scant use of hyperbolic metaphor or reference to individual responsibility for dementia, and any corresponding blame and accountability. I argue that the presence of individualistic dementia ‘preventative’ behaviours in media discourse is problematic, especially in comparison to other more ‘controllable’ and treatable chronic conditions. Engagement with, and critique of, the nascent ‘panic-blame’ cultural context may be fruitful in enhancing positive social change for people diagnosed with dementia and their carers

Sending money home: are remittances always beneficial to those who stay behind?

This paper examines the importance of remittances from international migrants to those who stay behind. The paper looks in particular at the Zimbabwean case, and argues that while money sent from the 'other side' has a beneficial effect on close kin, remittances can also undermine the purchasing power of those households without migrating members. This is in part a result of asset price inflation, and in part due to the inflationary effects of parallel currency markets. The situation for those excluded from benefiting from foreign currency inputs is aggravated by chronic scarcity in the availability of consumables. The paper argues that further research is required to understand the costs, as well as the benefits, of money sent home by migrants, in terms of assessing the class and social agency of different groups of remittance senders and receivers. The paper suggests that one non-economic, but significant effect, of remittance-underwritten parallel markets might be an undermining of inclusive governance and democratic state accountability in the long-run. © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

In the service of tyranny: debating the role of planning in Zimbabwe's urban `clean-up' operation

The paper debates the role of planning in `Operation Murambatsvina/Restore Order', Zimbabwe's 2005 controversial urban clean-up campaign. The discussion critically assesses two perspectives regarding the purported contribution and complicity of planning in what critics perceive to be the machinations of a regime that is internationally viewed as nefarious. This is done, first, by interrogating the role and contribution of planners and planning to the instigation and design of the operation before it was launched and, secondly, by determining the extent to which planners and planning served as the handmaiden of state repression during the operation. After weighing relevant empirical evidence on the culpability of planning, the discussion concludes that, while planning may escape the first charge, it certainly has a case to answer on the second