Abstract
Atolls of our coral reef inhabited by people living with dementia are linked up by partial connections, by hesitant assumptions, which on some of the atolls are almost unconditionally relevant, while on others hold true only partially, and still on others are not valid at all. There isn't single bleaching, nor single solution to these problems.
All-encompassing unities - as syndrome of dementia or bleaching - are visible only when observing from nowhere, be it from the vantage point of Medicine or Oceanography. From the viewpoint of a single being, concrete community or centre of coherence they have only limited value.
And yet, the individual versions of living with dementia are interconnected one with the other in such a way that it entitles us - under certain circumstances and in a certain sense - to talk about unity. Reality is "more than one - but less than many" (Mol 2002: 55; Law 2004: 59, 62, 74, 160).
In the field of STS, researchers call this ontological nature of reality multiplicity. Our attempt at capturing multiplicity of living with dementia indicates that different patterns of coherence linked by partial connection do not have to be commensurable - they do not have to map onto a single Euclidean space.
Our-self, casuistic, town and translation were drawn up by different researchers, in different sites and with different partners. We believe that acknowledging ontological specificity and idiosyncratic dignity of multiple partial patterns of living with dementia gives some hope - if not for cure, then at least for better living and dying in the times of trouble.