The spatial ordering of care: public and private in bathing support at home

Domiciliary care takes place in a special social space: that of the home. Focusing on the provision of bathing in the community, the article explores the spatial ordering of care at home, unpacking a series of interlocking contrasts between the public and the private, and their consequences for the power dynamics of care. These are explored in terms of the ideology of home; the spatial ordering of privacy within the home; and the treatment of the body. Carework trespasses on and re-orders these divisions. The article also explores the contrasting site of the day centre. Baths at day centres are private acts in public places, and in reversing the symbolism of home, they reveal some of the wider meanings of bathing.