Continuing the
metaphor of water: How we studied Care
Science and reason are ways that we humans guard against
self deception. True scientific
experiements control for everything besides the variable that is being tested
including the biases of the experimenters. Scientific studies are used to
determine cause. For example, Does penicillin kill bacteria? After a study is completed it is published in
a journal that is reviewed by other scientists who are familiar with the field
of study who can evaluate the study method and results. Science is a community
process in which one study builds upon another. These studies comprise a body
of work on a particular topic. These methods work well in physical, chemical
and biological sciences. However in social, behaviorial, psychological and
anthropological studies of human individuals and communities we have to use
different methods. Usually we can demonstrate a correlation between two things.
For example, shoe size and reading ability are positively correlated. This
means as your shoe size increases most often your reading ability also
increases. However, no one would argue that shoe size causes reading ability or
vice versa. Both are correlated with advancing age in infancy and childhood.
Yet neither is actually caused by advancing age.
Before scientists can study things they first need to define
and identify them. Because care is so much a part of our daily lives, we hardly
notice it. There are no rituals or rites for caring. No cultural markers that
identify it. There is no beginning of the job of housework, there is no
retirement party as there is for a career in the marketplace. Care is
continuous and everlasting. Much of a woman’s life is consumed with giving
care, planning care and recovering from care work.
Care is like water nurturing all life. Like water, care
takes its shape, speed, form from the circumstances in which it finds it’s
self. Water in the frozen north, is ice, in the mountains it rushes down stream,
in the ocean it laps on the shore or rolls and heaves, in massive waves.
When I began my research, I new a great deal about how to
give care but very little about how we humans think about care. What for one
was compassion, for others was a days work. I also knew very little about the extent to
which it varies from person to person, setting to setting, need to need. Most
of all, I wanted to know why there was so much variation in pay between the
work done in the homes and nursing homes,
and that done in hospitals. We
anthropologists are used to studying humans by living with them and learning
their ways. We observe, make friends, and ask questions. However like other
scientists, we use checks and balances to avoid putting our own biased
interpretation on what we see. One way we do this is by using statistical
methods to test our observations. My
methods were developed by Louanna Furbee and Robert Benfer, my mentors and professors at the University of Missouri, Columbia where I did my research. Furbee and Benfer used these methods to understand expert knowledge of the people who actually did the work. For example they studied kinds of soil known to farmers in Peru, and terms for illness used by Mayans in Chiapas, Mexico. These methods produces a map of the universe of the concepts, soil, illness, in
which all of the differences in the ways the people think about things 'live'. So when I wanted to know
how Americans think about care I studied people who are involved in caring for
elders. I studied 5 nursing homes and asked the staff, the elders, and their
family members what people who are caring for another do for them, who needs it, and who does it. The second dimension that defines the front and back sides, surfaces or planes of the cube goes up and down. Points along this line or dimension are more or less serious or critical. A wound to the heart would be among the most acute or major threats to the life of the person. Dropping ones glasses would be among the least serious threats to the life of the person or organism.
This dimension is shared with the two side surfaces.
Now, picture the sides of the phone booth. The sides of the booth extend from the top to the bottom.
This side represents the need. How serious or life threatening is the need? Does the newborn need to be kept alive in an intensive care unit? Does the infant need a smile or a game of peek a boo? The range of variation of the threat to the life is mapped along the side of the cube. In health care this term is sometimes called acuity. How acute is the problem?
The third dimension is
the distance from front to back and defines both the side surfaces, and top and bottom. This dimension varies in terms of distance from self. How close is the care giver to the care receiver's home and heart. The recognition of mother, father, family kin, kith, clan and stranger is an ancient concept. Intimacy between the care giver and care receiver is measured along this dimention. Is the caregiver a
stranger ? He might picks up the glasses of an older person who dropped them? Or is it a mother who is breast feeding ; daughter who is bathing an ailing parent, or a nurse who is caring for a patient?
These three dimensions were created by a statistical method called multidimensional scaling. Three dimensions were produced when we poured our data into a computer program that took all of the individual's questionaire responses and created a map of the universe of care, and we could make some predictions about how different people think about care and the values they place on it. By using a computer program we are able to determine relationships among the responders to our questionaire and by thinking about how these responses differed from one another we were able to hypothosize that these are the three dimensions that describe the shape the universe of care in the minds of Americans. Not only did multidimensional scaling give us the three dimensional map it plotted responses within the space. Thus, we could identify different kinds of care. Some of these kinds of care have names: Pregnancy, Homemaking, Child care, Nursing care, Mothering, helping, kindness, compassion. Others do not have names. They are so ubiquitous that they have never been named.
This has been an exciting time for me. While this research was completed in 1991, I only recently understood how to explain it to you, the reader, who is unaccustomed to these methods of study, in ways that are interesting, accurate, and understandable. So for the next few months I'll be posting the lessons learned from my research about care.