The other side : sketching the landscape of care?

Abstract

In the August of 2024, if you put the phrase "care crisis" on Goole search, you get close to one million search hits (968 000, to be exact). We are familiar with these crises, as they somehow touch each of us, the lives of ourselves and those close to us. With the welfare states’ withering budgets, lengthening queues for services, and lack of health and social care professionals, we are forced to face – once again – the ultimate question of ‘what is good enough’ when it comes to care. On the other side of the coin, there is also the question of what is definitely not good enough, not adequate enough – what the lack of care looks from the perspective of those who need it and those who work in caring professions, and what happens when the elements that we are not used to being associated with care, such as neglect and even violence, appear in the sphere of care.