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Regulated fragmentation organises care of the vulnerable older people into elements provided by the caring family, professionals, care workers from public/private providers and volunteers. In this exploratory article, I consider the role of the stranger in modern care management, a role that has up to now been neglected or been understood largely in terms of a migrant worker. Using literature, applying discourse analysis and drawing upon Simmel and Kristeva, I outline dimensions of the stranger and the unfamiliar that can further research and policy considerations.

Overalt i verden er ældreomsorg på den politiske dagsorden på grund af ændringer i demografi, fertilitet, kvinders stigende erhvervsdeltagelse og senest finanskrisen. Samtidig ændres de samfundsmæssige betingelser og styringen af ældreomsorg i det nordiske velfærdsregime gennem blandt andet professionalisering, senmodernitet, afkønsliggørelse og neoliberalisering. Hidtidig teori i form af feministisk omsorgsteori er utilstrækkelig til at forstå, hvad de nævnte forandringer gør ved ældreomsorgen, betingelserne for styring og forholdet mellem stat, svækkede ældre og de nære Andre. I kritisk dialog med – og udvidelse af – feministisk omsorgsteori argumenterer jeg for, at vi derfor nødvendigvis må supplere den med nye analytiske begreber fra filosofi og politologi såsom assemblage, relaterethed, logikker, flerniveaustyring og transnationale diskurser. De analytiske begreber introduceres, og deres relevans begrundes.

Elderly care is at the top of the political agenda nationally and globally due to changing demography, declining fertility rates, increasing labor market participation rates of women and the financial crisis. Elderly care has been theorized successfully within feminist care theory. However, changing societal and political conditions in the Nordic welfare regime such as professionalizing, late modernizing, degendering and neoliberalizing indicate the inadequacy of this theoretical framework. In critical dialogue with – and extension of – the feminist theory of care, I argue in favor of introducing new analytical concepts from philosophy and political science such as assemblage, relatedness, logics, multilevel governance and transnational discourses. These concepts are elaborated in view of the contemporary (human) condition.

Elderly care is at the top of the political agenda nationally and globally due to changing demography, declining fertility rates, increasing labor market participation rates of women and the financial crisis. Elderly care has been theorized successfully within feminist care theory. However, changing societal and political conditions in the Nordic welfare regime such as professionalizing, late modernizing, degendering and neoliberalizing indicate the inadequacy of this theoretical framework. In critical dialogue with – and extension of – the feminist theory of care, I argue in favor of introducing new analytical concepts from philosophy and political science such as assemblage, relatedness, logics, multilevel governance and transnational discourses. These concepts are elaborated in view of the contemporary (human) condition.

New forms of Governance and Struggles about Recognition – the angry Home Helper? Struggles about recognition of care have evolved during the last decade in Western Europe. In Denmark struggles can be found within the field of elderly care and publicly employed home helpers. This mobilization seems to be related to the prevalence of a new form of governance, New Public Manage- ment (NPM), and is investigated from a top-down and a bottom-up perspective. A discourse analysis of political-administrative texts show a NPM inspired discourse that si- lences the qualifications of home helpers and reproduces misrecognition of care. Focus group interviews show that home helpers employ three different strategies towards this form of governance: the sweet, caring by the book and the professional home helper.

New forms of Governance and Struggles about Recognition – the angry Home Helper? Struggles about recognition of care have evolved during the last decade in Western Europe. In Denmark struggles can be found within the field of elderly care and publicly employed home helpers. This mobilization seems to be related to the prevalence of a new form of governance, New Public Manage- ment (NPM), and is investigated from a top-down and a bottom-up perspective. A discourse analysis of political-administrative texts show a NPM inspired discourse that si- lences the qualifications of home helpers and reproduces misrecognition of care. Focus group interviews show that home helpers employ three different strategies towards this form of governance: the sweet, caring by the book and the professional home helper.

New Public Management (NPM) is usually perceived as a homogeneous discourse. However, when we examine it by looking at micro-politics in municipalities and understand its consequences drawing on the voices of home helpers, the picture is more complex and ambiguous. NPM is seen as disciplining paid public elderly care by limiting and forming the understandings applied through two combined but different logics: a usually dominant logic of details and a usually minor logic of self-governance. The bottom-up study presented here investigates the translation — the understanding and application — of these two logics in two different Danish municipalities that are strategically chosen to illustrate differences along the continuum of NPM translations. It asks which logic the home helpers feel is most dominant and relates the results to feelings of recognition and misrecognition as well as to strategies of resistance. The analysis applies feminist theories of recognition and care, and its findings are based on focus group interviews and feminist discourse analysis.

Hvordan skal udviklingen af en omsorgspolitik på hjemmehjælperfeltet tolkes? Som empowerment eller som disempowerment? Er italesættelse bedre end tavshed? Diskursanalysen af professionalisme, omsorg og køn diskuterer udviklingen af omsorgsarbejdet i perioden 1943-1995.