When a "Home" Becomes a "House": Care and Caring in the Flood Recovery Process

In: Space and Culture, Band 12, Heft 3, S. 303-316

Abstract

This article focuses on the spatialities of care that are revealed, disrupted, and produced by the dependencies and vulnerabilities associated with flood recovery. It is based on a case study of the summer floods of June 2007 in Hull, Northeast England. The authors use a real-time, diary-based methodology to document and understand the everyday experiences of individuals following the floods. In contrast to the literature, which looks at the impact of care and caring on the home, they ask what we can learn about caring when the home is disrupted. Focusing on the diaries, the authors explore what flood reveals about the emotional and physical landscapes of caring in the context of recovery and illustrate the intimate connections that exist between ideas of dwelling and caring. In drawing on the accounts of carers (who are often also those displaced by flood), they explore the tensions and intersections between the spatialities of caring work as these are enacted between the routines of everyday "normal" life and the specific disruptions generated by flood.