Seminarium naukowe 27 maja

IEiAK zaprasza na seminarium naukowe w dniu 27 maja br., podczas którego Kristine Krause, Luise Schurian i Mariusz Sapieha z Uniwersytetu w Amsterdamie wygłoszą wykład pt.:

Care homes for Germans in Poland: Of what is this a case? Preliminary readings of an emergent phenomenon

Abstrakt:

“Geriatric colonialism”, “grandma deportation”, “oma-export”, “great business opportunities” are some of the terms used in media discussions about the phenomenon of moving aging bodies to places where costs for care are lower. Growing numbers of elderly who need care and dwindling numbers of people who can provide it have resulted in care labor migration. In scope much smaller, and less researched, is the phenomenon of not moving the carer, but the body which needs care. In Europe, Poland is at the forefront of these transnational care arrangements not only in sending out many care workers, but also in building care homes that are targeting clients (in particular) from Germany. Playing off geographic discrepancies in cost and access between the two EU-members states and triggered by the fact that care in Poland is three times cheaper than in Germany, the phenomenon has been slowly developing. The care homes that cater for Germans are mostly situated in areas that changed their state affiliation between the two countries. Various layers of historical events and different politics of memory have left visible marks on both the places and people that live there. In our presentation, inspired by an article of C. Lund and based on exploratory research we ask: of what is this phenomenon a case? Is it an offshoot of the privatisation of Polish care landscapes? Of transnational labour migration? Of real-estate investments? Of the stickiness of outsourcing? Post-feudal geographies? Future making?

We are looking forward to discuss some of these and possibly other readings with you!

Bio notes

Kristine Krause is a medical anthropologist trained in Berlin and Oxford and working at the University of Amsterdam as an assistant professor. Her research interests include political subjectivities and health, citizenship and care in transnational contexts. She is currently developing a bigger research project on care outsourcing to Central Eastern European countries.

Mariusz Sapieha is a graduate of the ‘Medical Anthropology and Sociology’ master program at the University of Amsterdam and of the ‘Anthropology’ program at the University of Warsaw. He is currently developing his PhD project within the wider project on care outsourcing.

Luise Schurian received her BA in Ethnology from the University of Heidelberg. Currently she is a master student of the Medical Anthropology program at the University of Amsterdam. She is currently working on her thesis about daily life and ways of relating of German elderly in Polish care homes.