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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Who speaks up for Ines Fonseca?
— Representing violence against vulnerable subjects and the ethics of care in fictional narrative about Alzheimer's disease : Ahora tocad musica de baile (2004) by Andres Barba | | Author(s) | Raquel Medina |
| Journal title | Ageing and Society, vol 37, no 7, August 2017 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press, August 2017 |
| Pages | pp 1394-1415 |
| Source | cambridge.org/aso |
| Keywords | Dementia ; Euthanasia ; Elder abuse ; Informal care ; Social ethics ; Fiction ; Attitudes to the old of general public ; Spain. |
| Annotation | This paper studies one of the first cultural texts dealing entirely with Alzheimer's disease (AD) to appear in Spain, Andrés Barba's 2004 novel 'Ahora tocad música de baile'. The paper argues that the significance of Barba's novel rests on two important issues: the ethics of representation of violence against vulnerable subjects, and the ethics of care. The paper analyses how these two issues allow Barba to create a story in which the verbal and physical abuse to which the person living with Alzheimer's disease is subjected places the reader, on the one hand, as a voyeur or witness of the abuse; and on the other, as interpreter, and ultimately judge, of the fine line that separates euthanasia, assisted suicide and murder. The open ending of the novel defers all ethical and moral judgement to the reader. The paper examines how the novel offers a monolithic perspective about Alzheimer's disease, in which care is presented as a burden. In fact, this study shows that the novel's multi-layered structure and polyphonic nature places the emphasis on stigmas, stereotypes and negative metaphors around Alzheimer's disease, as found in contemporary social discourses. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-170721005 A |
| Classmark | EA: CY: QNT: P6: TQ: HKF: TOB: 76S |
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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