Louise Kathrine Folker Christensen
Doctoral Candidate
University of Copenhagen
Abstract: Employing emerging research on shame and stigma concerning body, health, illness, ageing, and class, this talk will discuss the entanglements between dental issues and negative, self-aware experiences of shame among older persons who receive professional care within Danish elderly care systems. The presentation will consider ethnographic fieldwork in Danish elderly care to argue that tooth shame creates a variety of tooth shame practices—e.g., hiding smiles, withdrawal from social life, degrading oneself, and avoiding daily dental care and interaction with (dental) care workers. Tooth shame and tooth shame practices disturb not only self-worth and social life, but also caring encounters potentially resulting in a damaging and life-limiting spiral accumulating in late life.
Sponsored by The Wellcome Centre for Cultures and Environments of Health and the University of Exeter’s Shame and Medicine Project
Location and Address
Online