Routledge Studies in Care Aesthetics

Routledge Studies in Care Aesthetics brings together cutting-edge research in care and its interactions with disciplines across humanities and arts. Building on the existing work of applied theatre and socially engaged arts, this series provides textbooks, research and practitioner texts in the growing field of care aesthetics. Books in the series will include, therefore, titles such as ‘care aesthetics and dementia or ‘care aesthetics and the arts’ – and then new topics such as ‘care aesthetics and disability studies’ or ‘care aesthetics and design’. The ambition of the series is to draw on the growing interest in this emerging field, developing new texts that deepen our understanding of the aesthetics of care and the implications this has more broadly for health, social care, and the arts.

Care aesthetics is an emerging interdisciplinary field with its origins in feminist care ethics, everyday aesthetics, social engaged arts, and health and social care research. It proposes an ‘aesthetic paradigm’ in care practices, applying itself to multiple contexts, from medical settings and social care environments, to socially engaged arts projects or care practices taking place in everyday life. Care aesthetics claims that care has sensory, embodied and therefore aesthetic aspects which can be studied, critiqued, and improved. Writing in the series might include practices that are traditionally understood as arts-related – for example, the use of singing to support an elderly person as they dress – but also interactions beyond the arts which are considered aesthetic due to the fine attention to bodies working in close relation to each other. Care aesthetics is used to analyse micro practices of touch and intimate care and then more macro practices such as health and social care design, and the sensory quality of larger networked care experiences.

Studies in Care Aesthetics aims to expand our understanding of the field through its application to new and complementary areas, at a time when attention to and research interest in care is widespread across humanities, arts, and health disciplines. It will do this through commissioning engaging, interdisciplinary studies from multiple contexts. This will include books drawing from the disciplines from which care aesthetics emerged (health and social care, feminist philosophy and socially engaged arts), as well as boundary crossing explorations of care aesthetics applied to very different areas.

Aimed at advanced undergraduates, postgraduates, researchers and practitioners in the field of applied theatre.