Ageing in times of fire: A research proposal from the CLIMAGECARE project
Como envelhecer e cuidar numa época marcada por incêndios florestais, ondas de calor e pela crise climática?
O projeto CLIMAGECARE investiga as experiências de cuidado social e de saúde da população idosa em aldeias na fronteira entre Portugal e Espanha — territórios rurais afetados pelo despovoamento, pela falta de políticas de cuidado e pela crescente vulnerabilidade às alterações climáticas.
O projeto procura compreender:
Como se articula o cuidado ao envelhecimento entre o sistema de saúde primário, a comunidade e as famílias em contextos de crise climática.
As experiências quotidianas de cuidado e autocuidado das pessoas idosas, nas suas relações com os atores locais e com o ambiente.
Baseado em investigação empírica, interdisciplinar e colaborativa, o CLIMAGECARE cruza os campos dos estudos do cuidado, estudos ambientais e antropologia médica.
Quer saber mais e acompanhar o projeto?
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Abstract:
CLIMAGECARE explores ageing social care and older people's care experiences in the context of the climate crisis in villages on the Spain-Portugal border. The border and rural areas of Spain and Portugal share environmental and social conditions that impact the care of older people because depopulation processes and the lack of care policies in social and health programmes are causing a care crisis, and the current climate crisis is increasing the number of forest fires and the temperatures in these border areas, which mainly affect the ageing population. This project adopts a critical and reflexive approach to understand how ageing care is delivered in these rural border areas in a context of climate crisis. It analyses: (1) ageing social care in relation of the primary health system, community and families in the context of climate crisis events such as forest fires and increased temperatures, and (2) the daily care experiences of older people in the context of climate crisis events and their cultural construction of care and self-care based on their relationship with local care actors and the non-human environment. The design of CLIMAGECARE is grounded in empirical and interdisciplinary research, crosscutting the fields of care studies, environmental studies and medical anthropology to understand the dynamics of the relationships between ageing care and the climate crisis. The project will use qualitative research methods and a co-creation approach in two villages on the central Spain-Portugal border to answer the research questions.
Profile
Carlos Chirinos holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology and Communication (URV, 2021), a Master’s in Medical Anthropology (URV, 2015), and a degree in Social Anthropology (PUCP, 2010). He was a Margarita Salas Postdoctoral Fellow at Oxford Brookes and URV (2022–2024), and will be a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow (2025–2028) at CRIA (Lisbon) and Monash University. His project, CLIMAGECARE, will explore ageing and care in the context of the climate crisis in villages along the Spain-Portugal border. He has conducted qualitative research on health and care in rural Spain and Peru. His work focuses on illness, disability, gender, kinship, ageing, and long-term care. He is part of the URV team in Spanish R&D projects such as ALTERCARE, RETCOV, CareModel, CUMADE, and GenderCare.
