ABSTRACT
Our interest in time-space frameworks of care, and informal care in particular, took shape around the participation of three of the four authors in a conference in 2000, titled Marking Time, Making Time.1 Moving into a new millennium promoted debate on the topic of time in a range of ways, including national, ethnic, family and gendered histories. In tandem with this interest in the past has come speculation about the future, and how we as a society, a people and planet might develop, especially in the face of projected environmental and climate change. As individuals, and academic colleagues, we were part of these events and discussions to varying degrees. Drawing upon our respective backgrounds, as women with a range of caring experiences, employed in academia in the disciplines of geography, sociology and social policy, respectively, we considered what ‘time’ might mean for the analysis of social change and informal care. Our interest is in informal care, evident in public and private locations, which can involve a range of kin and non-kin individuals, including family members, relatives, friends, neighbours and work colleagues. The work of Melucci (1996) provided a starting point in our analysis. His philosophical and sociological reflections on time take the reader from the everyday regulation of clock time, through the rhythms of time, such as seasons, to the ways in which time moves our thinking and actions through past memories, future anticipations/speculations and the lived experience of each day. As human beings, we are, at any one time, working with many experiences and meanings of time:
Each and every day we make ritual gestures, we move to the rhythm of external and personal cadences, we cultivate our memories, we plan for the future.
