Unsettled: Aging with Displacement during the Post-Chavez Venezuelan Crisis

Abstract

Amid the global rise of displaced persons due to wars, disasters, and epidemics, little is understood about older adults who remain. Unsettled examines how older Venezuelans and their care providers lived with displacement during the post-Chávez humanitarian crisis. Commonly referred to as “the situation,” the constellation of crises involved severe shortages and widespread malnutrition, economic impoverishment and hyperinflation, pervasive violence, a multi-year drought, and the exodus of millions of Venezuelans. This interdisciplinary dissertation draws from ethnographic and gerontological social work research conducted in Venezuela between 2008 and 2016, with a concentrated span in Caracas during the last two years. Research sites were located within one of Caracas’s five municipalities and included its two largest community and government health clinics and its two largest nonprofit and government community groups for older adults. Combining longitudinal ethnographic methods, community based participatory research in social work, and strengths assessment in gerontology, research activities and data collection included clinical observation and interviews of providers at health clinics and members of older adult community groups. Data comprised semi-structured recorded interviews with care providers (n=26), older adults living with family (n=32), and older adults living alone (n=21); written field notes and photographs; literature and demographic survey data from research sites; and archival research on the history of older adult care provision in Venezuela.

This research is a monograph on aging with displacement, referring to the continual adaptation of older persons in disrupted environments characterized by loss due to crises, conflict, and disasters. A primary finding to emerge from this study involved older Venezuelans’ central concern changing during a two and a half year window from health to crime to hunger. Additional findings included that some older adults took on greater caregiving responsibilities in their families, and other older residents repurposed community groups to meet needs. I argue that aging with displacement during the situation required that older Venezuelans reconstitute their social and material environments to survive. Unsettled aims to assist local health care providers and communities, government institutions and policymakers, and international organizations with engaging older adult expertise and meeting the diverse needs and priorities of aging populations amid the increasing intersection of humanitarian crises and climatological disasters, the new global normal.