Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-nr4z6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-03T01:40:01.926Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Dementia and migration: Pakistani immigrants in the Norwegian welfare state

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 June 2014

ANDERS NÆSS  and
BJØRG MOEN
ANDERS NÆSS*
Affiliation:
Norwegian Social Research (NOVA), Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences (HiOA), Oslo, Norway.
BJØRG MOEN
Affiliation:
Norwegian Social Research (NOVA), Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences (HiOA), Oslo, Norway.
*
Address for correspondence: Anders Næss, Norwegian Social Research (NOVA), P.O. Box 3223 Elisenberg, N-0208 Oslo, Norway. E-mail: anders.nass@nova.no
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article is about dementia disease in the context of transnational migration. Focusing on the example of Pakistani immigrants in Norway, the article explores response processes surrounding signs and symptoms of dementia. Particular attention is lent to understanding how Norwegian-Pakistani families ‘negotiate dementia’ in the space between their own imported, culturally defined system of cure and care, and the Norwegian health-care culture, which is characterised by an inclination towards public care and biomedical intervention. Based on field observations and in-depth interviews with Norwegian-Pakistani families and hospital professionals working with dementia, we show that the centrality of the traditional family in Norwegian-Pakistanis' identity claims has significant implications for how Norwegian-Pakistanis relate to the Norwegian health-care culture, and for how signs and symptoms of cognitive decline are read and responded to in a migratory context.

Keywords

dementiamigrationNorwegian-Pakistanisintergenerational reciprocity‘normal ageing’
Type
Articles
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 35 , Issue 8 , September 2015 , pp. 1713 - 1738
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

All-Party Parliamentary Group on Dementia (APPG) 2013. Dementia Does Not Discriminate: The Experiences of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Communities. Alzheimer's Society and the House of Commons APPG, London.Google Scholar
All-Party Parliamentary Group on Dementia (APPG) 2012. Unlocking Diagnosis: The Key to Improving the Lives of People with Dementia. Alzheimer's Society and the House of Commons APPG, London.Google Scholar
Ayalon, L. and Areán, P. A. 2004. Knowledge of Alzheimer's disease in four ethnic groups of older adults. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 19, 1, 51–7.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bond, J. 1992. The politics of care-giving: the professionalization of informal care. Ageing & Society, 12, 1, 5–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowes, A. and Wilkinson, H. 2003. We didn't know it would get that bad’: South Asian experiences of dementia and the service response. Health & Social Care in the Community, 11, 5, 387–96.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bradford, A., Kunik, M. E., Schulz, P., Williams, S. P. and Singh, H. 2009. Missed and delayed diagnosis of dementia in primary care: prevalence and contributing factors. Alzheimer Disease & Associated Disorders, 23, 4, 306–14.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brochmann, G. and Kjeldstadli, K. 2008. A History of Immigration: The Case of Norway 900–2000. Univeristetsforlaget, Oslo.Google Scholar
Cohen, L. 1995. Toward an anthropology of senility: anger, weakness, and Alzheimer's in Banaras, India. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 9, 2, 314–34.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cohen, L. 2000. No Aging in India: Alzheimer's, Aging, and Other Modern Things. University of California Press, Berkeley, California.Google Scholar
Cooper, C., Alec, R., Thana, B. S. and Livingston, G. 2010. A systematic review and meta-analysis of ethnic differences in use of dementia treatment, care, and research. American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 18, 3, 193–203.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Corbin, J., and Strauss, A. (eds) 2008. Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded theory. Sage, Los Angeles.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Daatland, S. O.,Veenstra, M. and Lima, I. A. 2009. Helse, familie og omsorg over livsløpet [Health, family, and care across the lifespan]. Report Number 4, Norwegian Social Research (NOVA), Oslo.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Daker-White, G., Beattie, A. M., Gilliard, J. and Means, R. 2002. Minority ethnic groups in dementia care: a review of service needs, service provision and models of good practice. Aging & Mental Health, 6, 2, 101–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
d'Argemir, D. C. 1994. Gender relations and social change in Europe: on support and care. In Goddard, V. A., Llobeira, J. R. and Shore, C. (eds), The Anthropology of Europe: Identities and Boundaries in Conflict. Berg, Oxford, 209–27.Google Scholar
Daugstad, G. 2006. Ekteskapsmønstre i innvandrerbefolkningen: Hvem gifter innvandrere i Norge seg med?[Marriage Patterns in the Immigrant Population: Who Do Immigrants in Norway Marry?]. Statistics Norway, Oslo. Available online at http://www.ssb.no/samfunnsspeilet/utg/200604/06/index [Accessed 8 July 2013].Google Scholar
Dilworth-Anderson, P. and Gibson, B. E. 2002. The cultural influence of values, norms, meanings, and perceptions in understanding dementia in ethnic minorities. Alzheimer's Disease & Associated Disorders, 16, 2, 56–63.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Downs, M. 2000. Ageing update: dementia in a socio-cultural context: an idea whose time has come. Ageing & Society, 20, 3, 369–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dura, J. R., Stukenberg, K. W. and Kiecolt-Glaser, J. K. 1991. Anxiety and depressive disorders in adult children caring for demented parents. Psychology and Aging, 6, 3, 467–73.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Eidheim, H. 1969. When ethnic identity is a social stigma. In Barth, F. (ed.), Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference. Universitetsforlaget, Oslo, 39–57.Google Scholar
Elliott, K. S. and Di Minno, M. 2006. Unruly grandmothers, ghosts and ancestors: Chinese elders and the importance of culture in dementia evaluations. Journal of Cross-cultural Gerontology, 21, 3/4, 157–77.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Esping-Andersen, G. 1990. The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey.Google Scholar
Forbat, L. 2003. Concepts and understandings of dementia by ‘gatekeepers’ and minority ethnic ‘service users’. Journal of Health Psychology, 8, 5, 645–55.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Glaser, B. G. and Strauss, A. L. 1967. The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. Aldine de Gruyter, New York.Google Scholar
Gobo, G. 2006. Sampling, representativeness and generalizability. In Seale, C., Gobo, G., Gubrium, J. F. and Silverman, D. (eds), Qualitative Research Practice. Sage, London.Google Scholar
Godelier, M. 1999. The Enigma of the Gift. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Gubrium, J. F. 1986. Oldtimers and Alzheimer's: The Descriptive Organization of Senility. JAI Press, Greenwich, Connecticut.Google Scholar
Harding, N. and Palfry, C. 1997. The Social Construction of Dementia: Confused Professionals? Jessica Kingsley, London.Google Scholar
Helman, C. G. 2007. Culture, Health, and Illness. Hodder Arnold, London.Google Scholar
Henderson, J. N. and Traphagan, J. W. 2005. Cultural factors in dementia: perspectives from the anthropology of aging. Alzheimer Disease & Associated Disorders, 19, 4, 272–4.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hinton, L., Flores, Y., Franz, C., Hernandez, I. and Mitteness, L. S. 2006. The borderlands of primary care: physician and family perspectives on ‘troublesome’ behaviors of people with dementia. In Cohen, L. and Leibing, A. (eds), Thinking About Dementia: Culture, Loss, and the Anthropology of Senility. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey.Google Scholar
Hinton, L., Franz, C. and Friend, J. 2004. Pathways to dementia diagnosis: evidence for cross-ethnic differences. Alzheimer's Disease & Associated Disorders, 18, 3, 134–44.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hinton, L., Franz, C. E., Yeo, G. and Levkoff, S. E. 2005. Conceptions of dementia in a multiethnic sample of family caregivers. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 53, 8, 1405–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hinton, L., Guo, Z., Hillygus, J. and Levkoff, S. 2000. Working with culture: a qualitative analysis of barriers to the recruitment of Chinese-American family caregivers for dementia research. Journal of Cross-cultural Gerontology, 15, 2, 119–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hunt, C. K. 2003. Concepts in caregiver research. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 35, 1, 27–32.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Iliffe, S., Manthorpe, J. and Eden, A. 2003. Sooner or later? Issues in the early diagnosis of dementia in general practice: a qualitative study. Family Practice, 20, 4, 376–81.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ingebretsen, R. 2010. Omsorg for eldre innvandrere [Care for elderly immigrants]. Report Number 15, Norwegian Social Research (NOVA), Oslo.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Izuhara, M. 2010. Ageing and Intergenerational Relations: Family Reciprocity from a Global Perspective. The Policy Press, Bristol, UK.Google Scholar
Jang, Y., Kim, G. and Chiriboga, D. 2010. Knowledge of Alzheimer's disease, feelings of shame, and awareness of services among Korean American elders. Journal of Aging & Health, 22, 4, 419–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jutel, A. 2009. Sociology of diagnosis: a preliminary review. Sociology of Health and Illness, 31, 2, 278–99.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Khan, M. 2009. Tilbakeblikk; da pakistanerne kom til Norge Retrospection; When the Pakistanis Came to Norway]. Pax, Oslo.Google Scholar
Kitwood, T. 1993. Towards a theory of dementia care: the interpersonal process. Ageing & Society, 13, 1, 51–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kitwood, T. 1997. Dementia Reconsidered: The Person Comes First. Open University Press, Buckingham, UK.Google Scholar
Kleinman, A. 1981. Patients and Healers in the Context of Culture: An Exploration of the Borderland Between Anthropology, Medicine, and Psychiatry. University of California Press, Berkeley, California.Google Scholar
La Fontaine, J., Ahuja, J., Bradbury, N. M., Phillips, S. and Oyebode, J. R. 2007. Understanding dementia amongst people in minority ethnic and cultural groups. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 60, 6, 605–14.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lien, I. L. 1997. Ordet som stempler djevlene. Holdninger blant pakistanere og nordmenn [The Word that Marks the Devils. Attitudes Among Pakistanis and Norwegians]. Aventura, Oslo.Google Scholar
Liu, D., Hinton, L.,Tran, C., Hinton, D. and Barker, J. C. 2008. Reexamining the relationships among dementia, stigma, and aging in immigrant Chinese and Vietnamese family caregivers. Journal of Cross-cultural Gerontology, 23, 3, 283–99.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lock, M. 1993. Encounters with Aging: Mythologies of Menopause in Japan and North-America. University of California Press, Berkeley, California.Google Scholar
Lock, M. 2013. The epigenome and nature/nurture reunification: a challenge for anthropology. Medical Anthropology, 32, 4, 291–308.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lock, M. and Nguyen, V. 2010. An Anthropology of Biomedicine. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford.Google Scholar
Lyman, K. A. 1989. Bringing the social back in: a critique of the biomedicalization of dementia. The Gerontologist, 29, 5, 597–605.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mackenzie, J. 2006. Stigma and dementia: East European and South Asian family carers negotiating stigma in the UK. Dementia, 5, 2, 233–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moen, B. 2009. Tilhørighetens balanse: Norsk-pakistanske kvinners hverdagsliv i transnasjonale familier [The balance of belonging: everyday life among Norwegian-Pakistani women in transnational families]. Report Number 13, PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Oslo (UiO), Norwegian Social Research (NOVA), Oslo.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moen, B. 2011. ‘Det står i Koranen’: Familieforpliktelser overfor eldre i pakistanske familier [‘It says in the Qur'an’: family obligations to elders in Pakistani families]. Norsk Antropologisk Tidsskrift, 22, 1, 37–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moriarty, J., Sharif, N. and Robinson, J. 2011. Black and Minority Ethnic People with Dementia and Their Access to Support and Services. Social Care Institute for Excellence, London.Google Scholar
Mukadam, N., Cooper, C. and Livingston, G. 2011. A systematic review of ethnicity and pathways to care in dementia. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 26, 1, 12–20.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Næss, A. and Vabø, M. 2014. Negotiating narratives of elderly care: the case of Pakistani migration to Norway. Ageing International, 39, 1, 13–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nergård, T. B. 2008. Eldre innvandreres bruk av pleie- og omsorgstjenester: Rapport fra fem norske storbykommuner [Elderly immigrants’ utilization of health- and care services: a report from five urban municipalities]. Report Number 10, Norwegian Social Research (NOVA), Oslo.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Norwegian Ministry of Health and Care Services 2007. Dementia Plan 2015: Subplan of Care Plan 2015. Norwegian Ministry of Health and Care Services, Oslo.Google Scholar
Norwegian Ministry of Health and Care Services 2011. National Health- and Care Service Plan (2011–2015). White Paper Number 16 (2010–2011), Norwegian Ministry of Health and Care Services, Oslo.Google Scholar
Norwegian Ministry of Health and Care Services 2013. Future Care. White Paper Number 29 (2012–2013), Norwegian Ministry of Health and Care Services, Oslo.Google Scholar
Ory, M. G., Hoffman, R. R., Yee, J. L., Tennstedt, S. and Schultz, R. 1999. Prevalence and impact of caregiving: a detailed comparison between dementia and non-dementia caregivers. The Gerontologist, 39, 2, 177–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pollitt, P. A. 1996. Dementia in old age: an anthropological perspective. Psychological Medicine, 26, 5, 1061–74.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Purandare, N., Luthra, V., Swarbrick, C. and Burns, A. 2007. Knowledge of dementia among South Asian (Indian) older people in Manchester, UK. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 22, 8, 777–81.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Riessman, C. K. 2008. Narrative Methods for the Human Sciences. Sage, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Sayed, H. R. Z. and Ahlberg, N. L. 2006. What about the differences? A short review of the health system in Pakistan and its implications for immigrant health care in Norway. Norwegian Journal of Migration Research, 7, 2, 100–10.Google Scholar
Schiller, N. G., Basch, L. and Blanc-Szanton, C. 1992. Transnationalism: a new analytic framework for understanding migration. In Schiller, N. G., Basch, L. and Blanc-Szanton, C. (eds), Toward a Transnational Perspective on Migration: Race, Class, Ethnicity, and Nationalism Reconsidered. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences Volume 645, New York Academy of Sciences, New York, 1–24.Google Scholar
Seabrooke, V. and Milne, A. 2009. Early intervention in dementia care in an Asian community. Quality in Ageing and Older Adults, 10, 4, 29–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shaw, A. 2000. Kinship and Continuity: Pakistani Families in Britain. Routledge, London.Google Scholar
Shaw, A. 2005. British Pakistani elderly without children: an invisible minority. In Kreager, P. and Shroeder-Butterfill, E. (eds), Ageing Without Children: European and Asian Perspectives on Elderly Access to Support Networks. Berghahn, Oxford, 198–222.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Statistics Norway 2009. Innvandrere i norske kommuner: Demografi, levekår og deltakelse i arbeidsstyrken [Immigrants in Norwegian municipalities: demography, living conditions, and partiticpation in the workforce]. Report Number 36, Statistics Norway, Oslo.Google Scholar
Statistics Norway 2013. Population Statistics. Available online at https://www.ssb.no/en/befolkning [Accessed 5 December 2013].Google Scholar
Titmuss, R. 1974. Social Policy. Allen & Unwin, London.Google Scholar
Victor, C. R., Martin, W. and Zubair, M. 2012. Families and caring amongst older people in South Asian communities in the UK: a pilot study. European Journal of Social Work, 15, 1, 81–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitehouse, P. J., Haines, A. D., Lindstrom, H. and Graham, J. E. 2005. Anthropological contributions to the understanding of age-related cognitive impairment. The Lancet Neurology, 4, 5, 320–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitehouse, P. J., Maurer, K. and Ballenger, M. A. 2000. Concepts of Alzheimer‘s Disease: Biological, Clinical and Cultural Perspectives. Johns Hopkins University Press, London.Google Scholar
Whyte, S. R. 2009. Health identities and subjectivities: the ethnographic challenge. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 23, 1, 6–15.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Yeo, G. and Gallagher-Thompson, D. (eds) 2006. Ethnicity and the Dementias. Taylor & Francis, Washington DC.Google Scholar