The home as a site for long-term care: meanings and management of bodies and spaces

This paper is concerned with the constitution of the home as a landscape of care in a climate of extensive cost-cutting measures to community provided health care. It draws on data from a multi-disciplinary investigation of various dimensions of the home as a site of long-term care; this paper is concerned specifically with long-term health and associated home-care services provided by paid workers. Through analysis of interviews with adult care recipients and field observations, it examines the micro-scale processes through which the home is reconstructed as caregiving space, highlighting the negotiation of meanings of bodies and homes as fields of knowledge. It argues that the possibilities for the effective negotiation of body knowledge and homespace boundaries that are integral to the production of ‘caring’ space are embedded in and constrained by policies and practices constructed at a scale beyond home.