Privacy and Elderly Care in the Home – Past and Present

Natalie Patricia Körner; Emma Klakk; Emma Marshall; Katrine Mølgaard

doi:10.7146/psj.v5.160322

Authors

Natalie Patricia Körner The Royal Danish Academy-Architecture, Design, Conservation https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1541-9766
Emma Klakk https://orcid.org/0009-0008-4731-9170
Emma Marshall University of York
Katrine Mølgaard Royal Danish Academy

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7146/psj.v5.160322

Keywords:

privacy, home care, past-present, comparative case study, family carers, home, care work, boundary-drawing

Abstract

Home-based elderly care has grown markedly across Western Europe. This has happened in response to a normative emphasis on preserving the dignity, autonomy, and privacy of older individuals. While prior research has focused on care recipients, this article examines the privacy implications of homecare for cohabiting family carers who actively care for their sick relatives. Drawing on an interdisciplinary framework – combining history, sociology, and architecture – we study two contemporary Danish cases and one seventeenth-century British case. Approaching the cases through qualitative interviews, home touring, mapping, and microhistorical analysis of archival documents, we find that family carers face constraints on their privacy. A persistent sense of responsibility and vigilance towards their relatives, coupled with the routine presence of homecare professionals, requires them to continually establish boundaries in order to withdraw, create intimacy, and regulate access to the home. In contrast to early modern domestic care, which was a shared and embedded practice within larger households, today’s family carers often bear the burden alone as the closest – and often sole – cohabiting relative.

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