Care-Biographies: Narrating Kinship in the Context of Care

Abstract

This dissertation asks: How and why does an individual become a primary, and in some instances, sole kin caregiver for an elderly relation; and how does this process contribute to new conceptions of both kinship and care? Through four life-history case studies I explore the diversity of motives and sentiments that can propel and shape contexts of care, drawing particular attention to the long-term relationship history between the caregiver and care-recipient. These histories illustrate the fact that periods of caregiving emerge into an already established relational landscape between the caregiver and the care-receiver. Because caregiving contexts often involve the pronounced elements of arduous physical labor, fatigue, and the emotional burdens of worry and uncertainty, they draw attention to the immediate circumstances of the caregiving context and away from the longer relational history between the engaged parties. I argue that overlooking the deeper relational foundation threatens to silence other conversations that may be salient to the care scenario, such as power hierarchies, gender politics, economic disparity and strategies, disability and vulnerability, violence and exploitation. While the priorities of the caregivers’ and care-recipients’ everyday interaction may be dominated by the “busy work” of caregiving, the motivations, meanings, and value of those tasks are overwhelmingly built upon the foundation of their long history of kinship. My focus on these foundations reveals ethnographic evidence that directly challenges the common assumption that caregiving is necessarily an engagement of benevolence. Instead, the life histories featured in this dissertation reveal the complexity and diversity of “care” and “kinship” phenomena in human experiences, including the role of ambivalence or animosity in caregiving relationships.