Christine Milligan

Embodying emotion sensing space: introducing emotional geographies

Recent years have witnessed a welling‐up of emotion within geography, a surge of interest reminiscent of the fascination and exploration of embodiment that characterized much social and cultural ge...

Landscapes of care

The term ‘landscapes of care’ has increasingly taken hold in the lexicon of health geography. As the complex social, embodied and organizational spatialities that emerge from and through relationships of care, landscapes of care open up spaces that enable us to unpack how differing bodies of geographical work might be thought of in relationship to each other. Specifically, we explore the relation between ‘proximity’ and ‘distance’ and caring for and about. In doing so, we seek to disrupt notions of proximity as straightforward geographical closeness, maintaining that even at a physical distance care can be socially and emotionally proximate.

Preserving Space for Volunteers: Exploring the Links between Voluntary Welfare Organisations, Volunteering and Citizenship

While contemporary social and political theory views voluntary activity as key to the promotion of active citizenship, this paper argues that the connections between voluntary welfare associations and citizenship are more complex than these discourses allow. Drawing on research undertaken in the Scottish city of Glasgow and debates about an increased bifurcation of the voluntary sector, it considers how the different settings within which voluntary welfare associations are organised can act to facilitate or constrain the development of active citizenship. In doing so, it focuses on the tensions voluntary associations face between organisational growth and restructuring in order to provide good quality services, on the one hand, and the positive engagement with volunteers and empowerment of local people on the other. It demonstrates how the drive towards organisational growth can result in disempowerment and the promotion of passive citizenship; however, it is argued, that this is not a necessary outcome. Organisations can and do address the need to deliver professional and complex welfare services while remaining committed to active participation.

Location or dis-location? Towards a conceptualization of people and place in the care-giving experience

Over the last two decades we have seen an increased interest in informal care within both political and academic communities in the UK. This has stemmed in large part from an increased emphasis on the home-space as the preferred site of care provision and a resultant increase in the complexity of the care-giving relationship. The explicitly spatial dimensions of this caring relationship, however, are vastly under-researched. This paper represents one attempt to redress the gap by examining the importance of place, and its conceptualization, in the care of frail older people. In doing so, the paper focuses, firstly, on the spatial manifestation of care at various scales, identifying some of the processes behind variations in the care-giving experience and, secondly, using the example of dementia care, it considers how Auge´s concepts of anthropological place and non-space, when applied to domestic and institutional care settings, can facilitate a more nuanced understanding of the importance of people and place in the construction and delivery of care to frail older people.

Space, citizenship, and voluntarism: critical reflections on the voluntary welfare sector in Glasgow

Faced with anxieties about meeting welfare needs, and worries about the nature and meaning of citizenship, there is evidence of increasing state-initiated moves to develop the role and responsibilities of voluntary associations. Existing research suggests, however, that there are tensions between the spatial distribution of voluntary resources and welfare needs, and that the relationship between voluntary activity and active citizenship is more complex than is often acknowledged. Focusing on the voluntary welfare sector in Glasgow, the authors first examine the uneven distribution of voluntary activity across the city and its relationship to ‘need’. Although in contrast to previous research this reveals strong representation of voluntary organisations in deprived areas of the city (largely as a result of state funding programmes), important tensions and conflicts remain between where organisations are funded to provide services and the needs of vulnerable populations. In the second part of the paper the relationship between voluntarism and citizenship in Glasgow is examined. Highlighting the existence of a distinction between ‘grass-roots’ and ‘corporatist’ voluntary organisations, the authors illustrate the ways in which voluntarism can be associated with both the empowerment and the disempowerment of citizens. In the conclusions it is emphasised that developments in Glasgow resonate with wider concerns about the impact of welfare reform on the voluntary sector.

Putting the Voluntary Sector in its Place: Geographical Perspectives on Voluntary Activity and Social Welfare in Glasgow

The growing political and social significance of the voluntary sector in contemporary welfare reform is reflected in a wide body of research that has emerged in the political and social policy literature since the mid-1980s. While this work adds considerably to our understanding of the changing role of the voluntary welfare sector, these accounts are largely aspatial. Yet, geographical perspectives offer important insights into the development of the voluntary sector at both micro-and macro-levels. The purpose of this paper is thus twofold: first we wish to draw attention to what it is that geographers do that may be of interest to those working in the field of social policy; and second, we illustrate why such perspectives are important. Drawing on recently completed work in Glasgow, we demonstrate how geographical approaches can contribute to a greater understanding of the uneven development of the voluntary sector across space and how voluntary organisations become embedded in particular places. By unravelling some of the complex webs of inter-relationships that operate across the geographical and political spaces that extend from national to local we reveal some unique insights into those factors that act to facilitate or constrain the development of voluntary activity across the city with implications for access, service delivery and policy development. Hence, we maintain, that geographical approaches to voluntarism are important for social policy as such approaches argue that where events occur matter to both their form and outcome.

Calling for Care: ‘Disembodied’ Work, Teleoperators and Older People Living at Home

The provision of ‘distant’ care to older people living at home through telecare technologies is often contrasted negatively to hands-on, face-to-face care: telecare is seen as a loss of care, a dehumanization. Here we challenge this view, arguing that teleoperators in telecare services do provide care to older people, often at significant emotional cost to themselves. Based on a European Commission-funded ethnographic study of two English telecare monitoring centres, we argue that telecare is not ‘disembodied’ work, but a form of care performed through the use of voice, knowledge sharing and emotional labour or self-management. We also show, in distinction to discourses promoting telecare in the UK, that successful telecare relies on the existence of social networks and the availability of hands-on care. Telecare is not a substitute for, or the opposite of, hands-on care but is at its best interwoven with it.

‘Breaking out of the asylum’: developments in the geography of mental ill-health — the influence of the informal sector

This paper focuses on the changing role of the voluntary sector in the provision of care and support to community-based individuals with mental ill-health (MIH) in contemporary Scotland. In doing so, it reflects on the ways in which deinstitutionalisation is contributing to changing interrelationships between the formal and informal sector, the influence of the voluntary sector in the development of the locational geographies of individuals with MIH, and factors contributing to geographical variations in access and availability of voluntary sector supports. These developments are considered within the framework of the shadow state.

Service dependent ghetto formation : a transferable concept?

This paper considers the difficulties of transferring theoretical concepts derived from research undertaken in differing geographical locations. It focuses on deinstitutionalization, the North American concept of ‘Service Dependent Ghetto’ formation and its application to the Scottish environment of Dumfries and Galloway. The influence of agencies, the local community and facility-users in the formation of locational patterns is examined. It is concluded that, whilst some elements of the concept are reaffirmed by the Scottish study, different legislative mechanisms, greater centralized control and the influence of the voluntary sector create contradictory locational forces that counteract the North American findings. Consequently, it is argued, the transfer of place-specific concepts may be problematic.

Place and wellbeing:shedding light on activity interventions for older men

ABSTRACT In the United Kingdom, one in five of the population is an older man, many of whom live alone. Loneliness and social isolation is a growing issue for many of these older men, one that has been associated with elevated blood pressure, poor physical health, increased mortality and mental ill-health, including depression, suicide and dementia. Lone dwelling and social isolation have tended to be viewed largely as issues affecting older women due to their greater life expectancy (LE), but the LE gap between men and women is closing, presenting new challenges for the health and wellbeing of older men. This is not unique to the United Kingdom. Yet whilst inclusionary social spaces and supportive social ties can be important for enhancing physical and mental wellbeing amongst older people, evidence suggests that lone-dwelling older men can experience greater difficulty in accessing effective social support, relative to older women. Understanding those spaces of communal activity that are likely to be successful in promoting health and wellbeing amongst older men is thus important if we are to improve their quality of life. In this paper, we draw on research with a ‘Men in Sheds’ pilot programme in the United Kingdom, to illustrate how everyday spaces within local communities might be designed to both promote and maintain the health and wellbeing of older men. In doing so, we aim to offer insights into how Sheds, as created and gendered spaces, may not only engage older men in ways that help to maintain their perceived health and wellbeing, but also provide sites within which older men can perform and reaffirm their masculinity.