Care and caring: interdisciplinary perspectives on a societal issue of global significance

Abstract

IntroductionThe International Journal of Care and Caring (IJCC) commences publication with the present issue. In this opening editorial article we set out our vision for the new journal, which -as we will show -creates a timely and significant new space for critical engagement with global scholarship, policy and practice on care and caring. The article has three aims: to describe what will be distinctive and different about the International Journal of Care and Caring; to highlight our ambitions for it, including our determination that the new journal will have genuine global reach and international impact; and to explore some of the many different dimensions of research, scholarship and debate on care and caring which we hope to see further explored and developed in future issues of IJCC.As members of IJCC's Editorial Team, each of us has contributed to the founding concept for the journal, described here. We have been guided in this by our shared conviction that care and caring is a topic of huge and growing importance. We are persuaded, too, that within care and caring there is scope for significant theoretical and empirical development, and a real need for a new journal in which international scholarly debate on care and caring, based in sound research and scholarly endeavour, can emerge and thrive. We also believe that robust evidence and scholarship have the capacity to influence policy, practice and public discourse about care and caring, and in so doing to shape a more positive lived reality of caring relations and contexts around the world. 2These convictions underpin the vital and challenging agenda which lies before scholars and other researchers in the field of care and caring, in whichever part of the globe they and their studies are located. As we will explain, care and caring are central to human life and relations; associated with a wide range of emotions (spanning, for example, grief to joy, patience to exasperation, fear to security; and living and dying); and also -especially as the capacity to extend and save lives increases -have profound implications for the distribution of human, economic and other resources, in global, national and local contexts.Together we have sought international support for the idea of a new journal on care and caring across multiple disciplines, bringing the International Journal of Care and Caring to fruition as a new journal of the Policy Press. Giving it their strong support, distinguished scholars from diverse disciplines have highlighted the unique contribution IJCC can make, describing it as 'long overdue', 'exciting', 'timely and significant', and as a development which will 'bring a new level of scholarship and attention to issues facing our humanity for the future'. They also highlight its capacity to provide 'an important international and interdisciplinary evidence base'; to become 'essential reading' for 'academics, policy makers and practitioners interested in the complexities and nuances of care and caring'; and to 'create new synergies for the rising ...

Care workers under pressure – A comparison of the work situation in Swedish home care 2005 and 2015

“…In line with previous research, showing that home‐care work is mentally demanding (see e.g. Trydegård, , Van De Weerdt & Baratta, , Yeandle et al, ), the findings of this study illustrate that there has been an increase in mental exhaustion between 2005 and 2015. This could partly be viewed against the background of an amplified workload and decreased autonomy and support.…”

“…As a consequence, many Swedish municipalities have begun to apply increasingly restrictive guidelines and eligibility criteria for care services (Szebehely & Trydegård, 2012) and public resources have been concentrated to those who have most severe and complex needs (Rostgaard & Szebehely, 2012;Savla, Davey, Sundström, Zarit, & Malmberg, 2008). Even if 'ageing in place' is gaining importance as a significant principle in the organisation of eldercare in many Western countries (Yeandle et al, 2017), de-institutionalisation has been more dramatic in Sweden than elsewhere (Rodrigues et al, 2012). Between 2005 and 2015, the proportion of the population aged 65 and over in residential care decreased from 6.4 to 4.2 percent, while the proportion receiving home care was unchanged at 8.6 per cent (NBHW, 2006, Table 1 & 9;NBHW, 2017:12).…”

Job demand, control and unresolved stress within the emotional work of long-term care in England

“…As demand for LTC increases due to population ageing and wider social changes, the challenges facing the formal care workforce are increasingly acknowledged (Yeandle et al, 2017). There remains a paucity of research on the psychological wellbeing of LTC workers, despite ongoing attention to emotional burnout, job demand and emotional distress among human services' practitioners (Maslach and Jackson, 1984).…”

Semantics and Significance in Everyday Talk and Practice: Is this Care? Am I a Carer?

“…The place of social support and informal care in later life has long been asserted in personal testimony, public policy, and in research in several academic disciplines, 'as a societal issue of global significance' (Yeandle et al 2017). Global estimates converge around an estimate of eighty per cent of the help, care and support provided to older people being 'informal' , provided by household and/ or family members, particularly, but not exclusively, by women (Fine 2006(Fine , 2007Nolan, Davies, and Grant 2001).…”

“…Many others have also theorised contemporary care research, and included its problematic linkage with concepts of ageing and dependency (see, e.g., Fine and Glendinning 2005). A powerful public outline of 'the state of the art' in research, theory, policy and practice relating to the field of care is outlined in the inaugural editorial to the newly launched International Journal of Care and Caring (Yeandle et al 2017).…”