Relational Caring and Presence Theory in Health Care and Social Work: A Care-Ethical Perspective

The newly published book Relational Caring and Presence Theory in Health Care and Social Work: A Care-Ethical Perspective addresses a deep and globally felt dissatisfaction, among citizens in general but also among professionals. In healthcare, the social domain, in education, in the domain of housing, but also in psychiatry, youth care, and, for example, public administration, things have too often gone off course. As a result, there is a growing gap between the regime of competent professionals and managers, on the one hand, and the lifeworld of patients, clients, pupils, and residents with their needs, concerns, and longings, on the other. And also a gap between the institutional logic of organisations and their administration and quality systems, on the one hand, and the everyday practice and practical wisdom of front-line professionals, on the other. In these interrelated gaps, disconnected competences, bureaucracy, aloofness, mismatches, and distrust are proliferating. The relentless improvements since the 1980s hardly repair these deficits because they are producing more of the same. People, both as citizens and as professionals, hardly feel seen. Their distrust toward fellow citizens, their dissatisfaction with their work and their receptivity to populism are growing.

Ageing in sub-sharan AfricaSpaces and practices of care

Edited by Jaco Hoffman & Katrien Pype

A collection of in-depth ethnographic analyses
of the impact of local and global transformations on the care or lack of care received by older people in sub-Saharan Africa, this book provides the pan-African evidence and enquiry needed to advance debates about how to address (and who should address) the long-term care needs of this vulnerable
population. Contributors from the United Kingdom, the Congo, Kenya, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and France use case studies from eighteen different countries in all regions of sub-Saharan Africa to examine formal and informal care, including inter- and intra generational care and retirement homes, as well as care in the context of poverty, HIV/AIDS,
and migration.