The cosmopolitics of situated care

Abstract

Everyday experiences of illness draw our attention to the importance of the cosmopolitics of care in and through which normalizing and normalized practices of care can neither be taken for granted nor be expected. Drawing on ethnographic work on issues of everyday care practices in heath care this article argues that caring relations demand an attentiveness to the emerging requirements of care in concrete situations. Shared policy rules are beneficial if they allow policy practitioners to respond adequately to the unfolding issues, requirements and obligations of care practices. The article suggests that an ethnographic sense of and for caring practices may offer important insights that contribute to health care policy making processes.