There But Not There; an Experimental Ethnography of Elderly Care Institutions in Lebanon During Times of Crisis.

Abstract

This thesis explores the notion of elderly care, how it materializes in an institutionalized setting, and what it means for bodies to grow old. It delves into themes of aging, kinship, intimacy, trust, care, and their manifestations during times of national economic crisis in Lebanon and a global pandemic.

By engaging with debates concerned with the anthropology of care and institutions, this research aims to unpack how sentiments of intimacy surface and materialize in an institutionalized context, how agency influences the practice of care, and the way contingency becomes a methodology for doing anthropology in turbulent times. Methodological issues are especially paramount when dealing with elderly during a pandemic so, contingency brings to the fore new ways for researchers to be ‘there but not there’ and becomes a lens to do experimental ethnography.

Through WhatsApp video calls with older adults living in care institutions, I explore themes of kinship, care, life cycles, corona, and becoming old. I delve into how digital materiality transforms the possibilities and contours of fieldwork and proposes a ‘virtual intimacy’. The outcome of the research also includes a short desktop documentary aware of the uncertainties anthropologists face while doing ethnographies over distance or in times of crises.

My study offers substance to the production of a silhouette of those who offer and receive care, rather than a reflection. It is sensitive to the external factors that influence their lives, to the context of its production, and is open to individual interpretations through which humans create their worlds.