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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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The living dead?
— the construction of people with Alzheimer's disease as zombies | | Author(s) | Susan M. Behuniac |
| Journal title | Ageing and Society, vol 31, part 1, January 2011 |
| Pages | pp 70-92 |
| Source | http://www.journals.cambridge.org/aso |
| Keywords | Dementia ; Attitudes to the old of general public. |
| Annotation | Current literature shows how both Alzheimer's disease (AD), and the people that suffer from it, have been stigmatised. Suggests that the stigma surrounding AD is of a specific type - dehumanisation based on disgust and fear. While blame for negative perceptions of people with AD has been placed on the biomedical understanding of dementia, strong negative emotional responses are also reinforced by the social construction of people with Alzheimer's as zombies. Seven specific ways that the zombie metaphor is referenced in both the scholarly and popular literature on Alzheimer's are identified, namely: appearance, loss of self, inability to recognise others, cannibalism, epidemic proportions, cultural terror and disgust, and the idea that death is preferable. This common referencing of zombies is significant as it pervades the social discourse about Alzheimer's with a politics of revulsion and fear that separates and marginalises those with the disease. Concludes that by recognising the power of this zombie label, its negative impact can be addressed through an emphasis of connectedness, commonality, and inter-dependency. (JL). |
| Accession Number | CPA-110301001 A |
| Classmark | EA: TOB |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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