Together in eventide: Everyday negotiations of personhood in dementia care.

Over the space of a few decades, biomedical advances have blurred the line between life and death and re-articulated questions surrounding personhood. Dementia care is among the areas where such questions surface prominently. Throughout the past decades, the concept of personhood in the field of dementia care has been increasingly understood as a concept that can be supported through social relationships. However, this support is one-sided, directed at maintaining the personhood of the clients with dementia. This thesis draws from five months of ethnographic fieldwork in a nursing home and dementia day care in the Netherlands. I argue that personhood should be seen as a dynamic performed relational practice by showing the following: The practice of personhood draws meaning from the socio-political and interpersonal realms. Personhood is enacted and confirmed in shared performances, but different actors can have different perspectives on what these performances should cover. Personhood is inherently relational, as through these performances, one’s personhood influences the other. Due to the inherent complexity of the illness, dementia can be particularly problematic in this process as it can sabotage the reciprocity of the performance of personhood