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dc.contributor.authorThompson, Dianeen_GB
dc.date.accessioned2012-07-13T10:59:18Z
dc.date.available2012-07-13T10:59:18Z
dc.date.issued2000-09
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10547/233629
dc.descriptionA thesis submitted to the Faculty of Healthcare and Social Studies in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by the University of Lutonen_GB
dc.description.abstractThis thesis presents a retrospective critique of the social and political construction of 'informal care' within community care policy from the period of the late 1970s to the mid 1990s. The thesis considers the question of the degree of 'choice' available to informal carers to say 'no' to caring, or aspects of caring, within the reforms' positioning of informal care as the first line of support for adult dependants. The critique focuses on subjectivity, difference, agency and choice. A theoretical and methodological synthesis is developed between feminist post-structuralism, feminist critiques of mainstream social policy, and feminist theory and research, within which a qualitative in-depth interview study with informal carers is situated. The critique is then expanded through the development of a 'Q' Methodology study with a larger cohort of informal carers. The research identified gendered generational differences between the carers, and a 'burden' of care imposed as an outcome of consecutive governments' attempts to residualise welfare. The older carers' levels of agency and choice were severely curtailed. However, the younger female carers were more able to resist the drive of the community care reforms, their counter discourses being based on a new emergent notion of 'rights'. The direction of community care policy was found to be out of step with how the carers within this study perceived their responsibilities and 'obligations'. The thesis argues that whilst post-modernism may have constrained the capacity of governments and reconstituted our understanding of 'care', it has not done so to the extent that we are no longer prepared to make demands for 'care' from and by the state.
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherUniversity of Bedfordshireen_GB
dc.subjectL590 Social Work not elsewhere classifieden_GB
dc.subjectcare in the communityen_GB
dc.subjectCarersen_GB
dc.subjectinformal careen_GB
dc.titleThe social and political construction of care: community care policy and the 'private' careren
dc.typeThesis or dissertationen
dc.type.qualificationnamePhDen
dc.type.qualificationlevelDoctoralen
dc.publisher.institutionUniversity of Bedfordshireen
refterms.dateFOA2020-05-10T10:15:57Z
html.description.abstractThis thesis presents a retrospective critique of the social and political construction of 'informal care' within community care policy from the period of the late 1970s to the mid 1990s. The thesis considers the question of the degree of 'choice' available to informal carers to say 'no' to caring, or aspects of caring, within the reforms' positioning of informal care as the first line of support for adult dependants. The critique focuses on subjectivity, difference, agency and choice. A theoretical and methodological synthesis is developed between feminist post-structuralism, feminist critiques of mainstream social policy, and feminist theory and research, within which a qualitative in-depth interview study with informal carers is situated. The critique is then expanded through the development of a 'Q' Methodology study with a larger cohort of informal carers. The research identified gendered generational differences between the carers, and a 'burden' of care imposed as an outcome of consecutive governments' attempts to residualise welfare. The older carers' levels of agency and choice were severely curtailed. However, the younger female carers were more able to resist the drive of the community care reforms, their counter discourses being based on a new emergent notion of 'rights'. The direction of community care policy was found to be out of step with how the carers within this study perceived their responsibilities and 'obligations'. The thesis argues that whilst post-modernism may have constrained the capacity of governments and reconstituted our understanding of 'care', it has not done so to the extent that we are no longer prepared to make demands for 'care' from and by the state.


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