Ethnographies of Social Support

Why do elderly choose to move away from their children so as to not receive their support? Using a number of case studies, contributors explore social support as a tool of mutuality, or maintaining relatedness and sharing feelings, rather than preventing or patching up problems. This book helps correct the dominant framework of deliberate action.

Introduction; Markus Schlecker 1. Housing Support for the "Undeserving": Moral Hazard, Fires, and Laissez-faire in Hong Kong; Alan Smart 2. "Who Will Love You if They Have to Look after You?": Sakhalin Koreans Caring from a Distance; Dorota Szawarska 3. Access to the Social: The Ethics and Pragmatics of HIV/AIDS Support Groups in South Africa; Marian Burchardt 4. The Changing Scale of Imprisonment and the Transformation of Care: The Erosion of the "Welfare Society" by the "Penal State" in Contemporary Portugal; Manuela Ivone P. da Cunha 5. The Compassion of Strangers: Intimate Encounters with Assistance in Moscow; Melissa L. Caldwell 6. Young Chinese Volunteers: Self/Interest, Altruism, and Moral Models; Friederike Fleischer 7. Engagements and Interruptions: Mapping Emotion at an Athenian Asylum Advocacy NGO; Heath Cabot 8. Life, Labor, and Merit: War Martyrdom as Support Encounters in Late Socialist Vietnam; Markus Schlecker 9. Empathy, Salvation, and Religious Identity: Hindu Religious Movements and Humanitarian Action in India; Frédérique Pagani 10. Epilogue; Bartholomew Dean

Marian Burchardt, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Germany Heath Cabot, College of the Atlantic, USA Melissa L. Caldwell, University of California, Santa Cruz, USA Manuela Ivone P. da Cunha, University of Minho, Portugal Bartholomew Dean, University of Kansas, USA Frédérique Pagani, Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture de Versailles, France Alan Smart, University of Calgary, Canada Dorota Szawarska, University of Warsaw, Poland