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Women with Dementia and their handbags: Negotiating identity, privacy and "home" through material culture

Buse, Christina E., Twigg, Julia (2014) Women with Dementia and their handbags: Negotiating identity, privacy and "home" through material culture. Journal of Aging Studies, 30 . pp. 14-22. ISSN 0890-4065. E-ISSN 1879-193X. (doi:10.1016/j.jaging.2014.03.002) (KAR id:53624)

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Official URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jaging.2014.03.002

Abstract

The article analyses the role of handbags in the everyday lives of women with dementia. Drawing on findings from an ESRC funded UK study ‘Dementia and Dress’, it shows how handbags are significant to supporting the identities of women with dementia as ‘biographical’ and ‘memory’ objects, both in terms of the bags themselves, and the objects they contain. This is particularly so during the transition to care homes, where previous aspects of identity and social roles may be lost. Handbags are also significant to making personal or private space within care settings. However, dementia can heighten women's ambivalent relationship to their handbags, which can become a source of anxiety as ‘lost objects’, or may be viewed as problematic or ‘unruly’. Handbags may also be adapted or discarded due to changing bodies, lifestyles and the progression of dementia.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1016/j.jaging.2014.03.002
Uncontrolled keywords: Dementia; Material culture; Dress; Identity; Spatiality
Subjects: H Social Sciences
H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
Divisions: Divisions > Division for the Study of Law, Society and Social Justice > School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research
Depositing User: Lucie Patch
Date Deposited: 07 Jan 2016 11:04 UTC
Last Modified: 16 Feb 2021 13:32 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/53624 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

Buse, Christina E..

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Twigg, Julia.

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