Rethinking Restriction in Residential Aged Care: Dis/Abling Movement and Relations in the Time of COVID-19

Restricting movement is a major focus in policy directives to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in aged care homes. In this article, we rethink dominant framing of restriction through a critical examination of the politics of good care and ethnographic attention to spatial extensions and interdependencies between residents, care workers, and assistive technologies. Drawing on ethnographic observations in two South Australian care facilities, analysis of aged care policies and national inquiries into aged care, and relevant media reporting, we examine how restriction to movement, misconceptualized as a good form of care, has suppressed residents’ physical and social needs and ruptured abling assemblages of resident mobility. We propose that walking alongside aged and frail residents offers new ways for thinking about care and re-abling relational approaches to care in times of crisis.