Description
Book SynopsisThe stories of fatherscaring for non-verbal children and how these experiences alter their understandings of care, masculinity, and living a full life. Vulnerable narratives of fatherhood are few and far between; rarer still is an ethnography that delves into the practical and emotional realities of intensive caregiving. Grounded in the intimate everyday lives of men caring for children with major physical and intellectual disabilities, Worlds of Care undertakes an exploration of how men shape their identities in the context of caregiving. Anthropologist Aaron J. Jackson fuses ethnographic research and creative nonfiction to offer an evocative account of what is required for men to create habitable worlds and find some kind of normal when their circumstances are anything but. Combining stories from his fieldwork in North America with reflections on his own experience caring for his severely disabled son, Jackson argues that care has the potential to transform our understanding of who
Trade Review“Anthropologist Jackson sheds light on the lives of ‘men caring for children with major cognitive and physical disabilities’ in his vulnerable and edifying debut.”
* Publishers Weekly *
"Vulnerable narratives of fatherhood are few and far between; rarer still is an ethnography that delves into the practical and emotional realities of intensive caregiving. Grounded in the intimate everyday lives of men caring for children with major physical and intellectual disabilities,
Worlds of Care undertakes an exploration of how men shape their identities in the context of caregiving." * Allegra Lab *
"What makes
Worlds of Care a compelling ethnography is its emphasis on relations, embodied interactions, and lived personal histories – making it a notable contribution to ongoing conversations on disability and caregiving. . . . The text’s combination of personal memoir and the phenomenologically oriented ethnography of care brings to fore the relatability of its narratives for not only men but for individuals and parents – beyond genders, sexualities, geographies, and generations, both within and outside academia." * Exertions *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
1. The Practice of Care
2. The Depths of Time: Past Becomings and Habitable Worlds
Interlude Gary’s Arrival Story
3. Between Bodies: The Fleshy Work of Caregiving
4. Conditions of Possibility: Fathering, Masculinity, and Moral (Re)Orientations
Interlude Connectivities
5. Belonging and Being-for-Others
6. The Axiom of Equality
Epilogue
Notes
References
Index
