Health&Care
The past two decades have seen a blurring of boundaries between public and private spheres of care and an emergence of diverse initiatives and organisations, redefining the roles of professionals and institutions in the statutory care sector, and volunteers, family and friends who provide informal care and fundamentally reimagining the relational geographies of care and responsibility. The reasons for this are manifold: from the growth of neoliberal consumerism and governance, to the influence of health and aid charities, to the strength of individual (self-)advocacy and grassroots organising. In light of moves towards valorising and investing in more informal and privatised spaces and arrangements for health care and wellbeing, the landscape of multi-stakeholder involvement and changing resource mobilisation strategies provokes many questions regarding how lives in precarious situations are governed, managed, enabled or constrained, and the forms of vulnerability, solidarity and transformation different actors experience.
Given the pressing contemporary issues of health and social care provision and governance, our research engagements raise critical awareness among citizens, practitioners and policy-makers confronted by such issues now and in the future.
Through providing insight into phenomena, frameworks for assessment and channels for collaboration and knowledge dissemination, we aim at fostering democratic environments for and capacities among stakeholders to design, implement, and govern more equitable social and health care arrangements that take into account diverse actors’ needs and interests.