Sensations, Bodies, and the ‘Spirit of a Place’: Aesthetics in Residential Organizations for the Elderly
基于1970-80年代英国养老院数据，分析权力如何组织感官体验（嗅觉、视觉、触觉、听觉），探讨机构如何通过美学实践维护老人尊严，区分家庭式与机构式设施。
This article uses data collected in the 1970s and 1980s from old people’s homes (OPHs) in the United Kingdom to explore how aesthetics are organized in residential organizations for the elderly. The analysis reviews the sensations to which OPH members are subjected and reveals the role of power in organizing aesthetic experiences. Paradoxes associated with framing residential organizations as homes and with controlling residents’ bodies are explored. I focus on the senses of smell, sight, touch, and sound with attention to staff and residents’ views of residents’ bodily messes and their constructions of residents’ death and dying. In exploring the ‘spirit of a place,’ I differentiate homey from institutional facilities (as ideal types) by noting their physical, cultural, and social attributes. In a section on socially constructing residents’ bodies, I explore how homey (more than institutional) OPHs use power to enhance residents’ dignity and rights. Conclusions affirm the value of placing the ethnographer and her bodily sensations inside the story and the need for more research on smells and power’s role in creating a positive spirit in residential organizations for the elderly.