Informal caregiving: the policy and research context -- Collecting personal experiences -- Organization of the book -- 1. Caregiving as part of personal life: connectedness, culture and reciprocity -- Care, kin and connectedness -- Culture and family care -- Reciprocity, recognition and relational models -- 2. Kin and care: carers' descriptions of the "good carer" -- The carer role: expressions of relatedness -- Caregiving tasks and family connectedness -- 3. Lives changed: the burden of caregiving from carers' point of view -- Effects of the caregiving experience -- Support from the social environment -- Considerations of adjustments to care situations -- 4. Listen to us: caregivers' relations to professionals -- Experiences of racism as a barrier to carer involvement -- Models of carer participation in clinical decision making -- Flexible use of the models of care relations -- 5. Disputed reciprocation: carer's views on commodification and recognition -- Provision of carer support in public policy -- Experiences of recognition of carers -- Defining and addressing carers' needs -- 6. Care and culture: towards a sociological understanding of care relations from carers' point of view -- A new model of care relations -- Implications for the study of informal care
Summary
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 experienc
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 157-175)
