Description

This chapter reports on the complexities and rewards involved in engaging with inclusive and qualitative approaches to research, notably with marginalised communities. It draws on research conducted in Philadelphia (US), the aim of which was the building up a phenomenology of informal care, that is, care work carried out at no pay by relatives or friends in private and non-professional settings. More specifically, the study explored the care experiences of 80 carers/parents living in the Philadelphia urban and suburban areas and diversified by gender, sexual orientation, marital status and type of care. One of the research’s goals was gaining deeper insights into the mechanisms through which dynamics of inclusion or exclusion and social inequality are interactionally and situationally constructed and/or challenged. The study was based on the hypotheses that emotions are a key element in understanding such mechanisms, and that informal care is a strategic site to analyse them.