Driving Miss Daisy

1. Driving Miss Daisy Suzanne England Carol Tosone New York University

2. The Narrative Turn • human observation & interpretation vs social science explanation • “studying up” vs “swooping down” • absent subject “unspoken” & subugated knowing • micropolitics--the political in the personal • character, plot, dramatic arch & prosaic details reveal larger cultural & moral narratives SAHMS Conference San Antonio

3. Dependency Narratives • Grateful, acquiescent patients & altruistic caregivers • Needing help is shameful • Being cared for by non-kin is abandonment • Dependency = burden & stress SAHMS Conference San Antonio

4. Dependency Narratives • A threshold event triggers caregiving • only instrumental care is recognized & compensable • caregiving is a one-way transaction • policy is to withhold supports to families • families, especially women, are responsible for caregiving • women provide relational care, men instrumental support SAHMS Conference San Antonio

5. Counter-narrative • Agency of the dependent person • Reciprocity of caring • Non-kin care is complex. “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way“ • men can provide relational care SAHMS Conference San Antonio

6. Hoke.. • “… a fine rich Jewish lady like you doan b’long draggin’ up the steps of no bus luggin’ no grocery sto’ bags.” • “It right to have somebody from the family looking after you.” • “What you think I am Miz Daisy? … some old somethin’ sittin’ up here doan know nothing ‘bout how to do?” • “how you know the way I see, less you lookin’ outta my eyes? • … Lemme hep you wid it.” SAHMS Conference San Antonio

7. Daisy … • “He’s stealing from me. • “I don’t like living this way! I have no privacy!” • “Boolie will have me in perpetual care before I’m cold.” • “I’m fine. I don’t need a thing in the world.” • “I didn’t say I love him. I said he was handy.” • “Stop talking to me!” SAHMS Conference San Antonio

8. Miss Daisy’s predicament • Loss of independence • Stigma of dependency • No one to care for • Diminishing sphere of control • Aging, Jewish, white woman • Loneliness SAHMS Conference San Antonio

9. Psychologizing Daisy • Assume fixed moral and personal development • Behavior determined by individual traits • Behavior determined by personal history and social status • Define dilemma in instrumental terms • Prescribe intervention SAHMS Conference San Antonio

10. Prosaics • “… [seeing] macropolitics in the micropolitical moments of their everyday execution.” • “… we see moral decisions made moment to moment by inexhaustibly complex characters in unrepeatable social situations.” • “… beyond what everyone already knows.” SAHMS Conference San Antonio

11. What the drama reveals • Close and continuing contact can build trust and give meaning to life • Daisy grows & learns how to receive care gracefully • Daisy returns Hoke’s care • Companionship can make life worth living • Race and gender barriers can be overcome SAHMS Conference San Antonio

12. Counter meta-narrative • Family care is a public good • Ill and disabled persons are productive citizens • Cultural assumptions as objects of inquiry • Everyday experience as a focal point for research and service planning SAHMS Conference San Antonio

13. “What the study of caregiving needs now is a new language, the analytic services of interpretation, transformation, and circumstantiality … without them, intervention, even though rationally planned and concisely programmed, will service nothing but accountability.” Gubrium J. & Lynott, R., (1987), Measurement and the interpretation of burden in the Alzheimer’s Disease experience. Journal of Aging Studies. 1(3), p. 283 SAHMS Conference San Antonio