Når sosial omsorg bringes til taushet: En analyse av hvordan sosial omsorg praktiseres, med eksempler ved dagsentre og i hjemmetjenestene i norsk og dansk eldreomsorg

This article deals with social care as a concept and practice in Norwegian and Danish elderly care. The article is based on an ethnographic study of home care services and day centres in four different municipalities in Norway and Denmark. In the two countries, social care has been theoretically and empirically examined only to a minor extent and therefore the article has a twofold aim: 1) to examine how social care is practised with examples from day centres and home care services 2) to discuss what social care can look like based on the situational and material conditions that surround and enable social care. Day centres have traditionally had a social goal and function, while the social dimensions of home care services have increasingly become an invisible and partly illegitimate area of care work. The study shows how professionals practise social care and how care takes different forms through human contact and «hygge», the inclusion of patients in social situations, and not least care that enhances life stories and dignity. We show how social care triggered by material and situational conditions is created by care workers and patients alike. It is especially «small» and unnoticed care actions that can be understood as social care, and which are important for older personsʼ social lives.