Care is about how we live our lives and how we relate to the people around us.

The framework of this project is based on the concept that what is important about people or objects is not the essence of a person or object itself but their relationship to the people and things around them.

This challenges the assumption that has influenced social and economic policy over the last 30 years that we make decisions as autonomous individuals and are not influenced by other people or the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

Care ethics must therefore be based on the significance of care in all our lives and the understanding that as humans we are interdependent and relational beings.

The project will focus on those who provide care and those who receive it and on the relationships between them. It will also recognise that these relationships are shaped by, and reflect, relationships of power.

This approach provides a framework for researching self-funded care by critically examining how care practice is discussed and decided together with notions of responsibility.