Jorun Rugkåsa

Informal care provided by family members is central to current health and social care policy. Caregiving can be seen as a point where macro- and micro-level processes meet: it simultaneously concerns the organization of welfare states and the everyday lives of the millions of people giving and receiving informal care. This makes it important to understand how the carer role is conceptualized and performed by those occupying it. Care and Culture contributes to the sociology of caregiving by giving voice to mental health carers from a great variety of backgrounds and by placing personal experiences centre stage in its analysis. It addresses a number of questions: How do cultural notions of kinship, family and connectedness shape carers’ motivations to care? What does caring for someone with a mental illness involve and how does it affect the caregiver? In what ways should carers be supported? How are their needs defined? Why is there a gap between how carers view their contribution and its recognition in policy and practice? How does a lack of recognition affect those experiencing it? Drawing on practice-oriented cognitive sociology, the book shows that, in order to understand caregiving, its personal, social and cultural dimensions must be considered. It presents a new model for understanding caregivers’ care relations to the person who is unwell, to health professionals and to the state. Perceiving these three relations as relying on differing reciprocal arrangements with different moral implications, new light is shed on issues such as the caregiving burden and the commodification of care.

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