Becoming-care: reframing care work as flesh work not body work

Cluley, Victoria

Abstract

This paper highlights the central role of the flesh within care relationships and how this disrupts and progresses existing understandings of care work. It is argued here that care work is a connected and fluid assemblage of diverse and changeable factors and that this relationship is best understood as a form of flesh work. Seeing care work in this way allows the care relationship between the person being cared for and the carer/s to be seen as a process of becoming; framed here as becoming-care. To illustrate this, two examples of a care relationship taken from a previous project are presented and discussed from a deleuzoguattarian standpoint. In this way, care work is assessed and theorised at the ontological level, resulting in the formulation of an alternative way of seeing care work that perhaps better reflects its reality – where the flesh is vital.

Citation

Cluley, V. (2020). Becoming-care: reframing care work as flesh work not body work. Culture and Organization, 26(4), 284-297. https://doi.org/10.1080/14759551.2019.1601724

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 25, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Apr 4, 2019
• Publication Date: Jul 3, 2020
• Deposit Date: Jan 20, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 26, 2023
• Journal: Culture and Organization
• Print ISSN: 1475-9551
• Electronic ISSN: 1477-2760
• Publisher: Routledge
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 26
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 284-297
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14759551.2019.1601724
• Keywords: Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management; Cultural Studies
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/16229700
• Publisher URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14759551.2019.1601724