Duties to Care: Dementia, Relationality and Law

‘Duties to Care’ provides a socio-legal interrogation of regulating dementia care. Building on feminist scholarship exploring the ways that care, caring and relationships are understood in law and society, this book contributes to literatures on feminist care ethics, relationality and vulnerability theory. Through an empirical exploration of carers’ experiences of navigating the regulatory domains of health and social care, it provides a critical analysis of the limitations of contemporary approaches to care regulation. ‘Duties to Care’ argues that by understanding the relational contexts that shape everyday experiences of regulatory structures, we can comprehend better where law is operating to support carers, and where it compounds the relational challenges of dementia. ‘Duties to Care’ builds on this analysis to argue that the challenges that dementia poses will only begin to be addressed if we find solutions that take appropriate account of the relationality of life, of dementia, and of law.