“I Am Going Home!”: Abolitionist and Freedom-Making Practices in Dementia Units of Nursing Homes

• In Event: Rage Against the Machine: Navigating the Abolition of Systems of Care

Abstract

I argue that old women with dementia and immigrant women of color care workers engaged in freedom-making and abolitionist practices that “raged against the machine” by resisting and unsettling the dominant temporalities that constrained or restricted care. Specifically, the care dyad rejected a politics of isolation and disposability, which are key to carceral systems, by giving time to and making time for one another. These gifts of time represented a divestment from institutional and state power and control, and an investment in relationships, care, and community.

Presenter

• Hailee Yoshizaki-Gibbons, Hiram College