As Maren A. Jochimsen writes in Careful Economics (2003), when considering and analyzing classic care situations for people who are existentially dependent on the provision of care services, such as children, elderly people in need of care, sick people, or people with physical and mental disabilities, three interdependent premises typically apply: (a) limited or complete lack of capacity to act on the part of the care recipients, (b) asymmetrical starting positions of the persons involved with regard to their ability to perform the necessary care services and their access to the resources required for this purpose, (c) resulting actual and potential dependencies and power relations. Classic care situations are therefore characterized by asymmetry at their core. The special characteristics of classic care situations lead to major challenges in their social organization (cf. Jochimsen 2003a: 75 ff.).
Care Glossary
Terms for Caring Societies
