The spaces in between care: considerations of connection and disconnection for subjects of care

Abstract

Drawing on work that explores human vulnerability and the incoherence of the subject in the process of subject formation, I build on the ideas of care as relational and connectedness within human geography. I examine how, in the process of becoming subjects of care, subjects encounter incoherence within themselves and between each other. I explore how this incoherence within and between subjects can be thought of as a disconnection, or the space in between subjects, and how the relationship of care can be conceptualised as the navigation of disconnections as those becoming subjects of care work to build connections. In this paper, I examine ethnographic data from northern Ghana, focusing in on the relationships of care that were constructed during one woman's end of life, highlighting the ways in which connections were forged across spaces of disconnect during the receipt and provision of care. Consideration of these spaces in between has the potential to contribute to our understandings of the experiences of the relational construction of care for both the recipients and providers of care. It also has the potential to contribute an understanding of the meaning and process of care that construct highly contingent and varied outcomes – ranging from soothing and supportive to distressing and invasive – for those involved.