Abstract

In a first approach, “caring” can be understood as a way of articulating time in full agreement with the need of others. Therefore, and thanks to care, we profit with the access to a peculiar consciousness of time which transcends the practical time of caring and simultaneously fosters and frames our own perception of time itself. Nevertheless, we know that in several care institutions there is a kind of “economic time” which is necessary both to the meeting with the most urgent needs as to fill the scarcity of the available resources. The time of institutionalized care is, above all, measured by the spatial conditions and possibilities as well as by the individuals who daily dwell and struggle in between such factors. The institutionalization of care practices tends to arouse an apparent primacy of space over time. Hospitals, nursing homes, day-care centers for children, recovery centers, among others, are now more likely than ever to fill the lack of time of individuals. Therefore, space is also a material reaction both to the lack of time and to the consciousness of time, especially boosted by those who abandon their loved ones. Based on these multiple articulations of time and space, I will try to show how the relational nature of care is transformed and gives rise to new ways of conceiving the idea of caring.