Disciplining Taiwanese families, a study of family ideology and home care practices

grantor: University of TorontoThis study explores the everyday operation of family ideology in the context of home care in Taiwan. It problematizes the prevalence of the three-generational-family (TGF) promoted by the state in formulating its elder care policy. The study documents how TGF as a policy is a reworking of the Chinese family tradition as an ideology to discipline Taiwanese families, especially women. Home care, through which state power encounters the everyday lives of Taiwanese, serves as the reproductive mechanism for TGF. Home care however also is shaped by other ideologies--the Western neo-colonialist professionalism and managerialism. This intersection between traditional Chinese family values and Western organizational practices constitutes the specificity of home care practices at this historical period in Taiwanese society. TGF does not operate in a pure form, but combines with professional discourse in its power strategies. When the Western-developed practice model of case management is introduced, TGF is directly translated into a preference for the use of informal resources. Case managers' function as assessors of resources is emphasized while advocacy is ignored. Case management becomes a professional form of TGF. Exploring social work practices within the colonialist framework of professional power, the boundary, emphasis and form of social work knowledge is problematized and its ideological effects revealed. However, forms of resistance do exist at the local level. Social workers struggle to remain emotionally neutral while caring for clients' well-being. Homemakers negotiate between the contesting identities of professional homemaker given by the agency and obedient daughter activated by elderly clients. The researcher himself battled with contradictions arising from his position as a Western-trained expert. The methodology used in this study is mainly "institutional ethnography", developed by Canadian sociologist Dorothy Smith, complemented by Michel Foucault's analysis of power and knowledge. Through Smith's materialistic approach, the processes of how family ideology is brought into reality through our daily practices as experts, social workers and homemakers are made explicit. Making family ideology visible paves the way for social transformation.Ph.D