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. 2025 Jul;47(6):e70061.
doi: 10.1111/1467-9566.70061.

Dental Disgust-An Ethnography of Abjection in Elderly Care

Louise Folker  1   2
Affiliations

Dental Disgust-An Ethnography of Abjection in Elderly Care

Louise Folker. Sociol Health Illn. 2025 Jul.

Abstract

This study identifies dental disgust as a widespread experience among carers while caring for decayed and ill mouths, hindering vital daily dental care among care-dependent older people. It is based on an ethnographic study conducted in nursing homes, home-care units and a rehabilitation centre in Danish elderly care, and it suggests that dental disgust plays a profound role in the impairment of oral health in elderly care settings. The study demonstrates that dental disgust remains unacknowledged in care systems and care studies, leaving carers inappropriate/d, shameful and solely responsible for handling it. It explores dental disgust through Julia Kristeva's notion of abjection (1982) to illuminate some of its care-hindering dynamics. It further draws on Donna Haraway's thoughts on articulation as a means of imagining better futures for people who have been depreciated as inappropriate (1992). Thereby, it suggests that the carers' articulations of dental disgust must be acknowledged and handled collectively. The study states that supporting carers institutionally and in research can help eliminate the inappropriateness of dental disgust, enabling future dental care. The study offers an analytical framework that transfers the theoretical terms 'abjection' and 'articulation' to socio-materially situated settings and into practice-relevant usage when disgust interferes with care.

Keywords: abjection; articulation; care; dental disgust; dirty work; disgust; elderly care; oral health.

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Conflict of interest statement

The author declares no conflicts of interest.

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