Autonomy on the Horizon: Comparing Institutional Approaches to Disability and Elder Care

• In Event: 1122 - Sociology of Culture Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (100 min): Table 19: Sociology of Knowledge

Abstract

Autonomy is a central value in Western societies. It structures expectations of social identity, is inscribed in law and policy, and constitutes a goal or metric of success in myriad welfare programs and institutions. Accounts of autonomy to date have been dominated by normative debates of what autonomy is or should be. In this paper, we shift our focus to ask what autonomy does. To put it simply, while autonomy may be a myth (Kittay 1999), it is a highly institutionalized one that structures action in everyday life. By taking autonomy’s power seriously, we examine the institutional production of autonomy as an interactional project to plan and give meaning to action. To do this, we draw on a cross-study comparison of two ethnographies with populations for whom autonomy is both central and problematic. One ethnography focuses on a post-acute care unit that works to recuperate elderly adults who are experiencing new forms of impairment and dependence. The other is an ethnography of disabled young adults who are “learning” autonomy at an independent living program. Both groups inhabit a liminal space between autonomy and dependency that allows us to observe institutional efforts to produce independence--which is the stated mission of both organizations. We focus on how staff members and participants at each site talk about autonomy, how they define and measure it, and the struggles they engage in when their definitions are in conflict.

Authors

• Adrianna Bagnall Munson, Sarah Lawrence College

• Guillermina Altomonte, New York University