“It’s a community thing!”: Decolonizing Struggles of Taiwan’s Indigenous Elderly Care
Keywords:
elderly care, decolonization, long-term care, anti-oppressive, Taiwan, communityAbstract
Drawing on qualitative interviews, this article explores decolonising struggles and emancipatory knowledge within Taiwan’s Indigenous elderly care services within the context of neoliberal policy restructuring. Informed by anti-oppressive practices, the article captures how increasingly marketised and commodified care policy reinforces the individualisation and isolation of care workers and elders within contested and politicised time and space domains. Workers sought to challenge the individualised trend by integrating the community into the care provision process and viewing care as a collaborative practice, including community engagement and collective political action. This article contributes to the decolonising debate and anti-oppressive practices by analysing empirical experiences in Taiwan and further examining the intersection of aging and ethnicity.
References
Armstrong, P., & Day, S. (2017). WASH, WEAR, and CARE – Clothing and Laundry in Long-Term Residential Care. McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Aronson, J., & Neysmith, S. M. (2006). Obscuring the costs of home care: restructuring at work. Work, Employment and Society, 20(1), 27–45. https://doi.org/10.1177/0950017006061272
Baines, D. (2010). Neoliberal Restructuring, Activism/Participation, and Social Unionism in the Nonprofit Social Services. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 39(1), 10–28. https://doi.org/10.1177/0899764008326681
Baines, D., Clark, N., & Bennett, B. (2022). Doing Anti-Oppressive Social Work (4th ed.). Fernwood Publisher.
Baines, D., & Daly, T. (2015). Resisting regulatory rigidities: Lessons from front-line care work. In Studies in Political Economy 95,137–160. Carlton University. https://doi.org/10.1080/19187033.2015.11674949
Baines, D., & Daly, T. (2021). Borrowed Time and Solidarity: The Multi-Scalar Politics of Time and Gendered Care Work. Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society, 28(2), 385–404. https://doi.org/10.1093/sp/jxz017
Baines, D., & Kgaphola, I. (2019). Precarious care: International comparisons of nonprofit social service work. Women’s Studies International Forum, 74, 210–217. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2019.05.001
Baines, D., & Sharma, A. (2022). Anti-Oppressive Practice. In S. S. L. Shaikh, B. A. LeFrançois, & T. Macías (Eds.), Critical Social Work Praxis (pp. 118–127). Fernwood Press.
Banerjee, A., Armstrong, P., Daly, T., Armstrong, H., & Braedley, S. (2015). “Careworkers don’t have a voice:” Epistemological violence in residential care for older people. Journal of Aging Studies, 33. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaging.2015.02.005
Berdai Chaouni, S., Claeys, A., van den Broeke, J., & De Donder, L. (2021). Doing research on the intersection of ethnicity and old age: Key insights from decolonial frameworks. Journal of Aging Studies, 56, 100909. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaging.2020.100909
Braun, K. L., Browne, C. V., Ka’opua, L. S., Kim, B. J., & Mokuau, N. (2014). Research on Indigenous Elders: From Positivistic to Decolonizing Methodologies. The Gerontologist, 54(1), 117–126. https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/gnt067
Chang, J. J. (2018). The rollback of long-term care 2.0 policy for Indigenous Elderly. Taiwan: A Radical Quarterly in Social Studies., 109, 179–186.
Charlesworth, S., Baines, D., & Cunningham, I. (2015). ‘If I Had a Family, There Is No Way That I Could Afford to Work Here’: Juggling Paid and Unpaid Care Work in Social Services. Gender, Work & Organization, 22(6), 596–613. https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12111
Chen, C., & Fu, T. (2020). Policies and Transformation of Long-Term Care System in Taiwan. Annals of Geriatric Medicine and Research, 24(3), 187–194. https://doi.org/10.4235/agmr.20.0038
Chen, H.-Y., & Boore, J. R. (2010). Translation and back-translation in qualitative nursing research: methodological review. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 19(1–2), 234–239. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2702.2009.02896.x
Clarke, K. (2022). Reimagining Social Work Ancestry: Toward Epistemic Decolonization. Affilia, 37(2), 266–278. https://doi.org/10.1177/08861099211051326
Daly, T., & Armstrong, P. (2016). Liminal and invisible long-term care labour: Precarity in the face of austerity. Journal of Industrial Relations, 58(4), 473–490. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022185616643496
Das, T. K., Mehta, B., Nikku, B. R., Omer, S., & Granich, S. (2022). Decolonizing South Asian social work: an analysis. Social Work Education, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/02615479.2022.2075843
Day, S. (2013). The implications of conceptualizing care. In P. Armstrong & S. Braedley (Eds.), Troubling Care: Critical Perspectives on Research and Practices (pp. 21–32). Canadian Scholar Press.
Diamond, T. (1995). Making Gray Gold: Narratives of Nursing Home Care.
Dominelli, L. (2002a). Anti-Oppressive Social Work Theory and Practice. Palgrave Macmillan.
Dominelli, L. (2002b). Anti-Oppressive Social Work Theory and Practice. Palgrave Macmillan.
Dominelli, L. (2012). Anti-oppressive practice. In G. Gray, S. Midgley, & S. A. Webb (Eds.), The Sage Handbook of social work (pp. 328–340). Sage.
Duffy, M. (2005). Reproducing labor inequalities: Challenges for feminists conceptualizing care at the intersections of gender, race, and class. In Gender and Society 19(1), 66–82. SAGE Publications Inc. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243204269499
Fraser, N. (1990). Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy. Social Text, 25/26, 56. https://doi.org/10.2307/466240
Funk, L. M., Stajduhar, K. I., & Purkis, M. E. (2011). An exploration of empowerment discourse within home-care nurses’ accounts of practice. Nursing Inquiry, 18(1), 66–76. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1440-1800.2010.00502.x
Gray, M., & Coates, J. (2010). ‘Indigenization’and knowledge development: Extending the debate. International Social Work, 53(5), 613-627.
Gray, M., Coates, J., Bird, M. Y., & Hetherington, T. (Eds.). (2016). Decolonizing social work. Routledge.
Hall, R. (2016). Caring Labours as Decolonizing Resistance. Studies in Social Justice, 10(2), 220–237.
Hsu, H.-C., & Chen, C.-F. (2019). LTC 2.0: The 2017 reform of home- and community-based long-term care in Taiwan. Health Policy, 123(10), 912–916. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthpol.2019.08.004
Huang, Y. H. (2018). Reflections on a Tribal Kitchen Project: A Case Study about Green Social Work in Taiwan. In L. Dominelli (Ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Green Social Work (pp. 171–181). Routledge.
Hulko, W., Brotman, S., Stern, L., & Ferrer, I. (2019). Gerontological Social Work in Action: Anti-Oppressive Practice with Older Adults, their Families, and Communities (1st ed.). Routledge.
Hulko, W., Camille, E., Antifeau, E., Arnouse, M., Bachynski, N., & Taylor, D. (2010). Views of First Nation Elders on Memory Loss and Memory Care in Later Life. Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology, 25(4), 317–342. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10823-010-9123-9
Hulko, W., Ferrer, I., Brotman, S., & Stern, L. (2022). Anti-oppressive social work with older adults: Counterstoytelling and other strategies. In D. Baines, N. Clark, & B. Bennett (Eds.), Doing anti-oppressive social work (pp. 284–307). Fernwood Publisher.
Ibrahima, A. B., & Mattaini, M. A. (2019). Social work in Africa: Decolonizing methodologies and approaches. International Social Work, 62(2), 799-813.
Kaaviana, A. (2015). Caring for our own old people: The Indigenous cultural care—To’ona tamu (Where Old People Are/ House of the Elderly Wisdom) in the Takanuwa Tribe, Kaohsiung. Taiwan: A Radical Quarterly in Social Studies, 101, 247–257.
Kennedy-Kish, B., Sinclair, R., Carniol, B., & Baines, D. (2017). Case critical: Social services and social justice in Canada. Between the Lines.
Kreitzer, L. (2016). Decolonizing social work education in Africa: A historical perspective. In Decolonizing social work (pp. 185-206). Routledge.
Lin, S. (Lamson). (2022). Social work indigenization in Mainland China: Towards a state-led decolonizing framework. Journal of Social Work, 22(1), 188–210. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468017320981707
Mahmood, A., & Martin-Matthews, A. (2008). Dynamics of carework: Boundary management and relationship issues for home support workers and elderly clients. In Aging and caring at the intersection of work and home life: Blurring the boundaries (pp. 21–42). Taylor & Francis.
Mahon, R., & Robinson, F. (2011). Feminist Ethics and social policy: Towards a new global political economy of care. UBC Press.
Ministry of Health and Welfare. (2007). Ten-Year Long-Term Care Project.
Ministry of Health and Welfare. (2017). Ten-Year Long-Term Care Project 2.0.
Santos, H. P. O., Black, A. M., & Sandelowski, M. (2015). Timing of Translation in Cross-Language Qualitative Research. Qualitative Health Research, 25(1), 134–144. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732314549603
Silan, W., Chen, C.-C., & Lai, T.-Y. (2022). Decolonization of care through a holistic way of living: Gaga from the Tayal in Taiwan. FACETS, 7, 591–610. https://doi.org/10.1139/facets-2021-0087
Simon, S. (1996). Gender in translation: Cultural identity and the politics of transmission. Routledge.
Sims-Gould, J., & Martin-Matthews, A. (2010). Strategies used by home support workers in the delivery of care to elderly clients. Canadian Journal on Aging, 29(1), 97–107. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0714980809990353
Tang, H. I. (2020). Approaching Collective Rights for Indigenous Social Work in Taiwan: A View of Indigenous Community-hood. Social Policy & Social Work, 24(1), 1–34.
Tilley, S. (2016). Doing Respectful Research: Power, Privilege and Passion. Fernwood Press.
Timonen, V., & Lolich, L. (2019). “The Poor Carer”: Ambivalent Social Construction of the Home Care Worker in Elder Care Services. Journal of Gerontological Social Work, 62(7), 728–748. https://doi.org/10.1080/01634372.2019.1640334
Tronto, J. C. (2015). Who cares?: How to reshape democratic politics. In IHRIM : the journal of the Institute of Health Record Information and Management (Vol. 36, Issue 4).
Twigg, J. (2000). Bathing - The Body and Community. Routledge.
Umin, I. (2018). The Issue of Indigenous Cultural Safety in the Long Term Care Policy of Taiwan. The Issue of Indigenous Cultural Safety in the Long Term Care Policy of Taiwan, 109, 199–214.
Wang, H. H., & Tsay, S. F. (2012). Elderly and long-term care trends and policy in Taiwan: challenges and opportunities for health care professionals. Kaohsiung Journal of Medical Science, 28, 465–469.
Wang, T. Y. (2019). Problematize Everyday Lives to Deconstruct Care Discourse. Formosa Journal of Mental Health, 32(2), 131–139.
Wang, T. Y., & Yang, P. J. (2017). Collisions between State Policies and Indigenous Cultures: Home Care in Indigenous Communities. Formosa Journal of Mental Health, 30(1), 7–35.
Wilkinson, I., & Kleinman, A. (2016). A passion for society: How we think about human suffering. University of California Press.
Yang, C.C., Hsueh, J.-Y., & Wei, C.-Y. (2019). Current Status of Long-term Care in Taiwan: Transition of Long-term Care Plan From 1.0 to 2.0. International Journal of Health Policy and Management. https://doi.org/10.15171/ijhpm.2019.115
Yeh, M.J. (2020). Long-term care system in Taiwan: the 2017 major reform and its challenges. Ageing and Society, 40(6), 1334–1351. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0144686X18001745