ECOLOGIES OF CARE: INVISIBLE WORK AND KNOWLEDGE IN DIABETES CARE

The thesis is an ethnographic investigation of diabetes care practices in the context of contemporary transformations in health care. Drawing from practice theory, ethics of care, science and technology studies and relational materialism, the research wants to foster a concept of care practices that could be used for exploring care in its complexity, in multiple spaces and with different relationships. The research takes the case of Emilia-Romagna and is set in a diabetes clinic and in different spaces where patients’ organizations are operating. Data were generated between 2018 and 2019, through participant observation and ethnographic interviewing. The results suggest the emerging of new models of subjects-patient, the shifts in values and ethics in diabetes care moved by patients’ organizations and groups, and the impact of invisible work in daily life for people with diabetes and for the course of diabetes itself. An intersectional analysis has shown the vulnerability of people with caring responsibilities and identities, reinforced by the increasing use of diagnostic and therapeutic programs based on the standard of patient-citizen, and the biomedical concept of “lifestyle” that is blind towards relationships. Without considering care in its totality it is impossible to address diabetes care.