ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that caregivers’ memoirs are able to complement research on caregiving, by addressing problems that may lie outside the scope of social science methodologies. It suggests that ‘care-writing’ can be understood as a form of caregiving in itself. The chapter explores how the authors of caregivers’ memoirs encounter, frame, and attempt to resolve some of the caregiving dilemmas. It focuses on a number of memoirs which represent not only different genres and media but also different caregiving relations and gender configurations, to explore how the authors of these narratives grapple with the difficult issues of coercion and paternalism. The chapter examines issues of (sub)genre or medium when they bear on the ‘point’ the narrative makes about caregiving dilemmas. Caregivers’ memoirs function as vehicles of patient advocacy. In criticising the care system, they raise awareness about dementia as a complex and urgent health priority and may, ultimately, be able to contribute to improvements in the care system.
