Language Use in Elderly Care: Czechia and Poland

24.06.2026

Language (verbal and non-verbal) is central to the experience and practice of care. In this episode, the Relocare team reflects on how observing and analysing different languages used in elderly nursing homes located in the Polish and Czech border regions impacted their research design. The episode addresses questions, such as what role language plays in care services, what is the history and politics of particular language use in specific settings and what does language use mean for the research?

GUESTS of the episode:

Matouš Jelínek
Matouš Jelínek
For his doctoral project completed in the Anthropology Department of the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research at University of Amsterdam, Matouš Jelínek studied transnational commercial care infrastructures in Central and Eastern Europe. His research focuses on the intersections of ethnicity, gender, and class in the fields of education, institutional care, and social services.
https://www.uva.nl/en/profile/j/e/m.jelinek/m.jelinek.html
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Matous-Jelinek-2
Kristine Krause
Kristine Krause
Professor of Anthropology of Health and Care, University of Amsterdam, research interests: transnational care, citizenship, political subjectivities and history. She is the PI of the ERC-funded project ReloCare: Relocating Care within Europe. www.relocatingcare.org
https://www.uva.nl/en/profile/k/r/k.krause/k.krause.html 

Sources: 

https://careorg.eu/

https://www.relocatingcare.org/

  • Arnold, Lynnette, and Steven Black. 2020. “How Communicative Approaches Enrich the Study of Care.” Medical Anthropology 39 (7): 573–581. https://doi.org/10.1080/01459740.2020.1814285.
  • Krause, Kristine, Prieler, Veronika, Horváth, Hanna, Jelínek, Matouš, Sapieha, Mariusz, Sekeráková Búriková, Zuzana., Ezzeddine, Petra, Schurian-Dąbrowska, Luise (forthcoming/ 2026). Care outsourcing from Germany to Central Eastern Europe. In the Special Issue: Transnational Organization of Labour, Mobility and Senior Care in Central and Eastern Europe. In: Social Inclusion.
  • Ezzeddine, Petra, Krause, Kristine. 2022. “Profitable Bodies and Care Mobilities in Central and Eastern Europe.” Global Dialogue, 12(3), 41–42. 
  • Großmann , Sonja, Schweppe, Cornelia. 2020. “Just like in Germany, only better? Old-age care facilities in Poland for people from Germany and the question of legitimacy.” Ageing & Society (2020), 40, 823–841 doi:10.1017/S0144686X18001290
  • Hayes, Matthew. 2014. “‚We Gained a Lot Over What We Would Have Had‘: Geographic Arbitrage of North American Lifestyle Migrants to Cuenca, Ecuador,“ Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 2014 Vol. 40, No. 12, 1953–1971, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2014.880335.
  • Jelínek, Matouš. Forthcoming. “Shared language as a scarce resource: organizing communication in care homes with foreign clientele,” Human Organization
  • Schurian-Dabrowska, Luise, Krause, Kristine. 2023. “Researching Words without Speaking Them. Language as Care Practice in Multi-Lingual Care Environments in Poland” Medical Anthropology, 42: 8: 815-827.
  • Uhde, Zuzana, and Petra Ezzeddine. 2020. “The Political Economy of Translocal Social Reproduction: cross-Border Care Mobility in the Czech Republic.” In Towards a Scarcity of Care? Tensions and Contradictions in Transnational Elderly Care Systems in Central and Eastern Europe, edited by N. Katona and A. Melegh, 26–47. Budapest: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Budapest.
  • Yeates, Nicola. 2012. „Global care chains: a state-of-the-art review and future directions in care transnationalization research.“ Global Networks 12, 2 (2012), 135–154.
Dr. Ewa Palenga-Möllenbeck
Goethe-Universität Frankfurt a.M.
Campus Westend - PEG
Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 6
60629 Frankfurt am Main
HPF 55
+49 6978936588 e.pm@em.uni-frankfurt.de
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