Representing a Shift in the Interaction Order: Dementia and Sociological Theory

From the moment a person is suspected to be suffering from a “mental disorder” such as dementia, the interactions they encounter progressively change. The people they interact with do not believe them as much as before, estimating what care they should provide; and at large, they behave differently. Symptoms are inseparably intertwined with this social experience of a shift in the interaction order (in the sense of Goffman). Consequently, while dementia are commonly defined through the cognitive losses of the patients, a sociological perspective may rather consist in describing this relational shift as the core of the condition. This involves both a methodological questioning – how to depict daily interactions in such a way that reflects the social dimension of the disease – and a theoretical one – what does studying dementia brings to sociological theory (through general concepts such as socialisation and habitus) and conversely. The presentation addresses these two issues based on several ethnographic studies completed in France and Canada in the last five years.