#57 Narratives of Loss: Baptiste Brossard talks Alzheimer’s Disease & Social Dimensions of Ageing

The Familiar Strange

“I’m giving mundane examples here, but it can be a matter of life or death in a sense. Whether people are believed or not, it changes their destiny” In this episode, we bring you an interview with Dr Baptiste Brossard. Dr Brossard is a sociologist and lecturer currently based at Australian National University. He has an interest in mental health, sociological theory, qualitative methods and utopias. He has authored two books:Why Do We Hurt Ourselves?: Understanding Self-Harm in Social Life; and Forgetting Items: The Social Experience of Alzheimer's Disease, which is the focus of our interview today. This interview was captured during last year’s AAS conference held in Canberra, at the ANU. Dr Brossard spoke with our own Julia Brown about what sociology and anthropology can bring to the study of Alzheimer’s Disease, and how ethnographic practice informed his time spent with French and Quebecois Alzheimer’s patients. He discusses how he applied some key theories from philosophy and sociology such as Erving Goffman’s Interaction Order, Deference and Ian Hacking’s Looping Effect to his ethnographic observations. He also reflects on narratives of loss, selfhood and social inequity in the context of being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease. Quotes, Links and Citations can be found on our website thefamiliarstrange.com Don’t forget to head over to our Facebook group The Familiar Strange Chats. Let’s keep talking strange, together! If you like what we do and are in a position to do so, you can help us to keep making content by supporting us through Patreon. Our Patreon can be found at https://www.patreon.com/thefamiliarstrange This anthropology podcast is supported by the Australian Anthropological Society, the ANU’s College of Asia and the Pacific and College of Arts and Social Sciences, and the Australian Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, and is produced in collaboration with the American Anthropological Association. Music by Pete Dabro: dabro1.bandcamp.com Shownotes by Matthew Phung and Julia Brown Podcast edited by Julia Brown and Matthew Phung