Bogdanova E.A., Galkin K.A., Nizamova A.N. Ethics of neighborhood care for the elderly in the Russian countryside: on the way to community managerialism. The Sociological Review. 2024. Vol. 23. No. 3. Pp. 285-313.

Текст статьи на сайте журнала URL: https://sociologica.hse.ru/2024-23-3/968994491.html (дата обращения 12.12.2024)

Abstract

Helping the elderly people living nearby is a common practice in the Russian countryside. The article presents a study of the experimental social program “Caring Neighbor”, which reforms voluntary neighbor assistance into a formalized paid social service provided under a contract. In this way, neighborhood assistance becomes part of the long-term care system. Theoretically, the article is based on the concept of the ethics of care proposed by Carol Gilligan. Whether the new social program introduces features of managerial ethics into the relationship of neighborly care for the elderly in the rural community is the main question of the article. The study, implemented in rural settlements of the Republic of Karelia and the Leningrad Region in 2020-2021, includes a series of case studies of neighborly care, carried out informally and as part of the “Caring Neighbor” program (number of cases = 16), alongside 20 expert interviews. The article concludes that the ethics of caring for the elderly which is being formed now in the Russian village can be defined as community managerialism. Community norms still dominate, but caring about the elderly people is beginning to be understood as a managed, non-gratuitous activity that needs to be coordinated.