What does 'care' mean in contemporary society? How are caring relationships practised in different contexts? What resources do individuals and collectives draw upon in order to care for, care with and care about themselves and others? How do such relationships and practices relate to broader social processes?
Care shapes people's everyday lives and relationships and caring relations and practices influence the economies of different societies. This interdisciplinary book takes a nuanced and context-sensitive approach to exploring caring relationships, identities and practices within and across a variety of cultural, familial, geographical and institutional arenas. Grounded in rich empirical research and discussing key theoretical, policy and practice debates, it provides important, yet often neglected, international and cross-cultural perspectives. It is divided into four sections covering: caring within educational institutions; caring amongst communities and networks; caring and families; and caring across the life-course.
Contributing to broader theoretical, philosophical and moral debates associated with the ethics of care, citizenship, justice, relationality and entanglements of power, Critical Approaches to Care is an important work for students and academics studying caring and care work in the fields of health and social care, sociology, social policy, anthropology, education, human geography and politics.
'Critical Approaches to Care is a rich and engaging work, both theoretically and empirically. Its richness is enhanced through its cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural focus. Through a series of case studies, it explores the moral dilemmas, power relations, ethical considerations, and even unwelcome demands of care from a range of perspectives and across different political contexts. It is a feminist-inspired work that is both inclusionary and respectful of diversity. It examines the many equality and gender justice dilemmas posed by care work, be it through caring for intellectually disabled children, fostering, transnational caring, fathering or mothering. At a theoretical level, it addresses the tensions between an ethics of care and an ethic of justice. The book challenges us to consider how an ethic of care can reinvent understanding of what is socially just in a deeply uncaring and unequal world. It should be read not only by academics and students but by all of those with a public policy remit.' - Kathleen Lynch, Professor of Equality Studies in the School of Social Justice, UCD, Ireland.
'Care is both deeply unfashionable in contemporary social policy, and an enduring focus for understanding everyday lives and social practices. This collection is a major contribution to the re-emergence of applied research and scholarship recognizing the centrality of care in diverse personal and professional relationships, and as a political value.' - Marian Barnes, Professor of Social Policy, University of Brighton.
