ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author explains her theoretical framework, method and describes a discursive, paradigmatic change. She presents the Danish case and the development of paid, professional home-helpers employed by the welfare state. The author aims to expand upon her thesis of a different form of retrenchment. She illustrates the discourses in the field, the different elements of retrenchment, its ambiguous character as well as the potentially threatening character of the rewritten discourses if they are translated into policy. New Public Management and the policy change towards a service-management outlook provide us with parts of the story about the development of Danish elderly care. The Nordic countries are known for the extensive rights they grant to recipients of care. The governance and budgetary discourse increasingly focuses upon the commodity status of care, which is care contains some commodities that can be produced in various contexts, commercial as well as non-commercial.
