Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Care is central to life, and yet is all too often undervalued, taken for granted, and hidden from view. This collection of fourteen substantive and highly innovative essays, along with its insightful introduction, seeks to explore the different dimensions of care that shape social, legal and political contexts. It addresses these dimensions in four key ways. First, the contributions expand contemporary theoretical understandings of the value of care, by reflecting upon established conceptual approaches (such as the 'ethics of care') and developing new ways of using and understanding this concept. Second, the chapters draw on a wide range of methods, from doctrinal scholarship through ethnographic, empirical and biographical research methodologies. Third, the book enlarges the usual subjects of care research, by expanding its analysis beyond the more typical focus on familial interconnection to include professional care contexts, care by strangers and care for and about animals. Finally, the collection draws on contributions from academics working in Europe and Australia, across law, anthropology, gender studies, politics, psychology and sociology. By highlighting the points of connection and tension between these diverse international and disciplinary perspectives, this book outlines a new and nuanced approach to care, exploring contemporary understandings of care across law, the social sciences and humanities.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Notes on contributors (p. ix)
• Acknowledgements (p. xiii)
• 1 ReValuing care: cycles and connections (p. 1)
• 2 Negotiating strangeness on the abortion trail (p. 14)
• 3 Carrying on by caring with in the shadow of a South African HIV/AIDS global health intervention (p. 31)
• 4 Caring for the homeless: Westminster City Council and anti-homeless bye-laws (p. 48)
• 5 Paths to social caring: researchers consider their journeys to activism (p. 65)
• 6 Young people who care for a family member with physical or mental health problems: can research better reflect the interests of young carers? (p. 81)
• 7 Caring at the borders of the human: companion animals and the homeless (p. 97)
• 8 Care and relationality: supported decision making under the UN CRPD (p. 114)
• 9 'New fathers' and the right to parental leave: is the European Court of Human Rights satisfied with just breadwinning? (p. 131)
• 10 Carers as legal subjects (p. 148)
• 11 Towards a 'reasonable' level of state support for care?: Constitutionalism, care work and the common good (p. 165)
• 12 Terms of endearment: meanings of family in a diverse sample of Australian parents (p. 182)
• 13 'It has had quite a lot of reverberations through the family': reconfiguring relationships through parent with dementia care (p. 198)
• 14 'Institutions, they're very straight. My god I hope I don't have to go into a care home': spatial inequalities anticipated by older lesbians and gay men (p. 215)
• 15 Beyond care and vocabularies of altruism: considering sexuality and older people (p. 233)
• Index (p. 251)

Author notes provided by Syndetics