Navigating Dementia and Society

Taking a thematic, Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (MCDA) approach, this open access book examines how different communicative modes can be used to reinforce or challenge particular world views and social practices, such as the marginalisation of people with dementia. It aims to extend traditional MCDA by exploring the plurality of possible interpretations of the same text, and by attending to how working with and for marginalised groups might inspire more positive social change. The book explores how 51 people in England who are affected by dementia (either by having a diagnosis or being a carer or loved one of someone who does) navigate different dementia discourses, interpret social texts, and recommend discursive change. The book demonstrates the subjectivity of both personal representations and interpretations. Key themes include the need for nuance when discussing dementia, and the tensions between different types of understandings of dementia (particularly across medical professionals, the media, and people affected by dementia). The author examines how individuals with and otherwise affected by dementia differently reinforce, challenge and provide alternatives to dominant dementia discourses, and how such experience-led debates might inform social discourses moving forward. In particular, this book advocates for more nuanced and normalising visual and linguistic representations of dementia that can better support the advocacy of people with (and otherwise affected by) dementia and address social stigma. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by UKRI.