ABSTRACT
This Chapter seeks to problematise some of the assumptions made about care, and part of this lies in the terms and labels applied to people involved in informal care relationships. Traditionally, terms that have been used to refer to the recipients of care are ‘dependent’, ‘service user’ or ‘cared-for’. To us, each of these terms is unsatisfactory, implying a passivity and lack of agency in the care relationship. The use of the terms care, carer, cared-for, caree and so on remain contested as long as they imply a
simplistic association with a loss in agency. For lack of better labels, we use these terms, but suggest that each should be read as though it is in quotation marks. To maintain this troubling of labels, we alternate terms and hope that this is received as problematising the use of language and adding to the debate rather than as a distraction from our argument.
