The politics of ailment : a new approach to care

This book introduces the concept of ailment as a new theoretical approach in the field of care studies and the wider social sciences. Ailment refers to the bothering that troubles, afflicts and plagues the body, its embodied mind and larger collectives and societies. Care is often the most ethical response to many ailments, but responses to ailment also include neglect and even abuse. Throughout history, individuals, households and communities have responded to ailment in their everyday practices, and there have been collective social efforts to respond to it, efforts that vary with the ethical standards and resources of a given time and place. We demonstrate how contemporary responses to ailment remain inadequate because they fail to acknowledge its nature as unpredictable and changing from one day to the next, rather like care. Ailment mobilises concrete, embodied and emotional responses in immediate social encounters, along with gendered, racialised and classed divisions of labour that extend to a global scale. We urge that attention be paid to how ailment bothers and affects individuals, their own ailment and care needs, and the ailments of others, including the ailment of earth itself, as revealed by the ongoing climate crisis. Different chapters of the book reflect on ailment and analyse social and care policies, the marketisation and financialisation of care, embodied care work and divisions of care labour. Front Cover The Politics of Ailment: A New Approach to Care Copyright information Contents One Introduction: Humans as ailing beings On different types of ailment Political responses to ailment Thinking with ailment in an ageing world Two Tracing ailment in social and care policies Sanctioning the ailing Protecting the ailing workforce Acknowledging ailment Failing the ailing Three Profit making and ailment: the marketisation and financialisation of care Marketisation of care Financialisation of care Profiting from ailment Four Ailment in caring encounters and divisions of care labour Affective encounters and caregiver ailment Ailment in intersectional and global divisions of labour Five The politics of ailment Thinking about social and care policies with ailment Thinking about markets and financialisation with ailment Thinking about care work and global inequalities with ailment The future of homo aegrotus and the ailing earth References Index Back Cover "Deficiencies in old age care are some of the most pressing human rights concerns in mature welfare states. This book radically challenges the ethics of viewing care as a tradeable commodity and introduces a novel framework for understanding and analysing social care through the concept of ailment. Providing examples from the British and Finnish welfare states, it demonstrates how ailment shapes societies from the micro to the macro level. Addressing the marketisation and financialisation of care, the authors bring to light increasing inequalities in care. This book argues that ailment is part of human life and society, and therefore the politics of care should begin with a politics of ailment."--Cover page 4

Deficiencies in old age care are some of the most pressing human rights concerns in mature welfare states. This book radically challenges the ethics of viewing care as a tradeable commodity and introduces a novel framework for understanding and analysing social care through the concept of ailment. Providing examples from the British and Finnish welfare states, it demonstrates how ailment shapes societies from the micro to the macro level. Addressing the marketisation and financialisation of care, the authors bring to light increasing inequalities in care. This book argues that ailment is part of human life and society, and therefore the politics of care should begin with a politics of ailment.

Challenging the ethics of care as a tradeable commodity, this book introduces the concept of ailment as a framework for understanding social care. Providing examples from Britain and Finland, it demonstrates how ailment shapes all societies, and by addressing the marketisation of care, the authors bring to light increasing inequalities in care.