On the task of making social inquiry aligned to caregiving: an invitation to debate

Abstract

This paper is designed as an invitation to debate the value of research and writing on social suffering in relation to practices of caregiving. It offers a brief account of the origins and development of ‘social suffering’ as a concern for social inquiry. Henry Mayhew and Jane Addams are profiled in terms of their pioneering roles as social researchers heavily preoccupied with problems of social suffering. The contrast between Henry Mayhew's frustrated attempts at caregiving and Jane Addams’ success in instituting the pedagogy of caregiving in the work of Hull House is set up for analysis. These examples are used to issue an invitation to readers to question the cultural and institutional circumstances that make possible forms of social inquiry that recognise caregiving both as a means to social understanding and as an aim for social research in practice.

Keywords:

• social suffering
• caregiving
• Jane Addams
• Henry Mayhew

Notes

1. The emphasis placed on ‘caregiving’ is intended to underline a particular interest in the doing of care; that is the visceral, muscular and sensory work of caring for the health, wellbeing and needs of others. Whilst this is identified as an issue of concern in contemporary debates in the sociology and social ethics of care, it is by no means foregrounded as a matter holding value for the pursuit of social understanding. For a useful review of these debates see Hamington and Miller (2006). For an example of how some of these issues might feature in a Chinese context see Holroyd (2003).

2. For key literatures on contemporary research and writing on social suffering see Bourdieu et al. (1999); Biehl (2005); Bourgois and Schonberg (2009); Dejours (2000) Farmer (2005) Kleinman Das and Lock (1997); Renault (2008); Scheper-Hughes (1992) and Wilkinson (2005).