This paper is concerned with the geographical analysis of care relationships. It argues that concern with space needs to be augmented by a more explicit attention to the importance of time to caring. The paper discusses the importance of time to social relationships of care, and reviews existing attempts to integrate time with space in geographical research. The paper reflects on and extends the ‘caringscapes/carescapes’ framework for research on informal care proposed in a recent book and earlier publications by myself and colleagues. It suggests that exploring the time—space links between the processes producing policies and services and those affecting individual behaviours is a promising avenue for future research.

In this paper we consider the ways in which concepts of and attitudes towards ‘disability’ affect disabled people's ability to move freely within public spaces. We first set the paper in context by briefly discussing recent developments in and ongoing debates on the conceptualisation of disability which have accompanied the growing disability rights movement. Next we examine feminist literature relating to the links between biology and the body and the social status of women and draw out parallels for the analysis of disabled people's social situation. We then discuss a possible framework for the analysis of disabled people's experience of public space. Finally, to illustrate the reflexive relationship between bodily and social experience, we draw on in-depth interview material from a case study of visually impaired people in Reading and Leeds, England.

In this article we explore temporal and spatial frameworks for analysing the experience of combining caring for children with participation in paid work. We highlight the pressure to undertake paid employment routinely, which places particular strains upon people who are most likely to have to combine caring and working. The authors assert that mothers continue to have the main responsibility for the organization, if not the conduct, of caring work (Sevenhuijsen, 1998). Traditional assumptions about the seeming relationship between femininity and caring remain relatively intact, despite major shifts in family formation, women’s participation in the labour market and debates about the changing role of men (Cancian and Oliker, 1999; Lister, 1997). Drawing upon the work of Adam (2000) on timescapes we develop the notion of caringscapes as a means by which the processes of combining caring and working may be theorized and also incorporated into UK government policy related to caring (whether directly or indirectly). We draw attention to the inadequacy of public policy that does not incorporate an awareness of the demands of the everyday across the lifecourse, of which a spatial-temporal component should be fundamental. The authors propose a caringscape perspective as a basis for both future research and policy developments and conclude that an enhanced recognition of the fluidity and praxis of caring and gender is necessary to support the evolving roles of parents, especially mothers who combine caring and working.

This paper explores the spaces important to friendship, arguing for a better understanding of the significance of friendship in geographies of care. It examines the intertwining of friendship, care and co-presence and explores the social contexts and spaces of friendship, with a particular focus on the space of the home. While friendships are an important form of care and support for most people, they have been neglected in geographical studies of care. There is an opportunity for geographers to add a new dimension to the existing literature on friendship and thereby to expand knowledge and understanding of change in the sources of intimacy, care and support.

This paper proposes a framework to guide research and analysis of informal care building on, and developing, earlier ideas about “caringscapes” and “carescapes.” We use the metaphor of a “care ecology” to suggest an overarching framework in which individuals’ “caringscapes” are viewed as dynamically interacting with the resources and services of a “carescape.” We start by summarising the main features of the caringscape and carescape frameworks, and then explore possible forms of interaction in the “care ecology.” First, we discuss the processes of reciprocation, “entrainment” and care accounting through which people use or develop social networks to provide informal care support as resources and needs for care change. We examine the links between formal and informal care and suggest how these may assist organisation and re‐organisation of care and encourage small, localised innovations, adaptations and initiatives which may create new forms of institutionalised or community support or spur wider political activism. We conclude by discussing the concept of a “care ecology.”

Academic discussions of care have stressed the complexity of the concept of care (Fisher & Tronto, 1990), and the difficulty of defining care ‘needs’ and ‘good care’ (Engster, 2007; Held, 2006; J. ...