Managing the Aging Present and Perceiving the Aging Futures: (In)Formal Systems of Care in (Pre-)Pandemic Croatia

Abstract

The article is an ethnographic account of recent and contemporary narratives and practices of care and aging in Croatia in the pre-pandemic and COVID-19 pandemic period, within the framework of formal, informal, and “hybrid” systems of care. Its theoretical basis lies in the fields of the anthropology of family, and the anthropology of aging and care, as well as in the concepts of dignity and the conceptions of futures. The ethnographic data were gathered from 2018–2021, in four locations/regions, both in rural and urban settings. The aim of the paper is to initiate a discussion about the qualitative, socio-cultural aspects of aging and everyday life of the elderly, of its transformations and continuities, both in the spatial and temporal dimension, in urban and rural contexts, in crisis, and in “times of peace”.

Keywords

• aging
• care
• dignity
• ethnography
• (pre-)pandemic times
• future(s)