The elderly as the object of nursing home discursive practice: the precaution of vulnerable lives

Abstract

In this article, we analyze how the elderly are positioned in the discourse as an object of practice that is manifested in the institutional space of the nursing home São Vicente de Paulo, in Jacarezinho, PR. To do so, we start with a discussion about discursive practice - reference, object, and associative domain - and the precariousness of elderly people living in nursing homes, relating them to the way the body is inscribed in a mechanism that manages death by the government, exercised over the vulnerability implied in that space. The enunciative series was extracted from official documents, medical records, and interviews with those responsible for the institution. After that, these records were submitted to an archaeogenealogical analysis regarding the government and the objectification in exercise inside this institution. We first considered that vulnerable old age is an emblematic statement of this practice and, as such, allows us to identify a regularity around the incapacity, invisibility, and precariousness of aged bodies on which the regulation of life and the administration of death operate.