ABSTRACT
Carework has traditionally been presented in ways that downplay its character as bodywork. In this chapter we will explore the nature of bodywork, focusing on how careworkers manage and interpret these aspects. One of the reasons why the bodywork element in care has been neglected is that it deals directly with the negativities of the body, the aspects of unboundedness that modern culture is reluctant to address (Lawton 1998). Careworkers manage these aspects on behalf of wider society, and we will explore some of the techniques that they use to do this, in particular the ways in which they put limits on the physical intimacy of the work. Before doing so, however, we need to address the nature of bodywork more generally.
