Invisible journeys: older caregivers and everyday mobility in sustaining life
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This article explores the experiences of unpaid older caregivers in Mérida, Yucatán, from a perspective that intertwines direct care with everyday mobility. Based on qualitative research with a narrative approach, a collaborative process was developed with eight older adults living in the southern part of the city. All of them directly accompany elderly relatives with chronic diseases such as Alzheimer's, cancer, or schizophrenia. Their stories provide insight into how care is experienced and unfolds in terms of the body, time, and space. The physicality that sustains it, the temporality that organizes each day, and the spatiality that conditions their journeys reveal how these embodied dimensions shape their daily movements. Beyond practical trips such as medical appointments, shopping, or errands, these journeys involve a constant effort to inhabit a city that was not designed with them in mind. Deteriorated sidewalks, inaccessible/distant transportation routes, and exclusionary digital systems create an adverse environment, where caring also means resisting. The analysis begins with a critique of how territory has historically been understood. While rurality has been hegemonicly associated with backwardness, urban areas are often assumed to be homogeneous spaces. However, cities also stratify and distribute services and infrastructure unevenly. Incorporating categories such as gender, age, and class makes it possible to see how access to, use of, and experience of space are marked by inequalities that shape ways of caring and living.
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Main Article Content
This article explores the experiences of unpaid older caregivers in Mérida, Yucatán, from a perspective that intertwines direct care with everyday mobility. Based on qualitative research with a narrative approach, a collaborative process was developed with eight older adults living in the southern part of the city. All of them directly accompany elderly relatives with chronic diseases such as Alzheimer's, cancer, or schizophrenia. Their stories provide insight into how care is experienced and unfolds in terms of the body, time, and space. The physicality that sustains it, the temporality that organizes each day, and the spatiality that conditions their journeys reveal how these embodied dimensions shape their daily movements. Beyond practical trips such as medical appointments, shopping, or errands, these journeys involve a constant effort to inhabit a city that was not designed with them in mind. Deteriorated sidewalks, inaccessible/distant transportation routes, and exclusionary digital systems create an adverse environment, where caring also means resisting. The analysis begins with a critique of how territory has historically been understood. While rurality has been hegemonicly associated with backwardness, urban areas are often assumed to be homogeneous spaces. However, cities also stratify and distribute services and infrastructure unevenly. Incorporating categories such as gender, age, and class makes it possible to see how access to, use of, and experience of space are marked by inequalities that shape ways of caring and living.