ABSTRACT
Care Aesthetics discusses the claim that care as a practice can be understood as having an aesthetics. The chapter places that claim in the context of care within health and medical contexts and explores how a focus on the sensory and embodied aspects of care might reveal dynamics of the relations between professionals and their patients which are often overlooked. Drawing from examples within medical practice, the discussion focuses on negative care aesthetics and then positive care aesthetics, in the sense of those aspects of care which enhance the experience between those involved. The chapter shifts the discussion from a more familiar ‘art of care’ to claim that care aesthetics is an enquiry into the experience of all those involved in the caring moment, and the experience of being with others.
