Materialities of Care

Materialities of Care Encountering Health and Illness Through Artefacts and Architecture Edited by Christina Buse, Daryl Martin and Sarah Nettleton Materialities of Care addresses the role of material culture within health and social care encounters, including everyday objects, dress, furniture and architecture. Studying 'materialities of care' makes visible the mundane and often unnoticed aspects of material culture, and attends to interrelations between materials and care in practice. The chapters examine material practice across a range of clinical and non-clinical spaces including hospitals, hospices, care homes, museums, domestic spaces and community spaces such as shops and tenement stairwells. The collection addresses fleeting moments of care, as well as choreographed routines that order bodies and materials. Throughout there is a focus on practice, and relations between materials and care as ongoing, emergent and processual. The contributions also draw attention to methodological approaches for capturing the material and sensory aspects of health and social care encounters.