The fictitious commodity care and the reciprocity of caring: a Polanyian and neo-institutionalist perspective on the brokering of 24-hour care

For the last few decades we have been witnessing the rise of new care markets. Referring to the international sociology of care and care work, the forced commodification and marketization of care has to be seen as interrelated with new forms of governance and changing welfare regimes as well as the transnationalization of labour, politics, and policies in contemporary capitalisms. The chapter investigates the 24-hour care provided by home care agencies and aims to shed light on the following facets. The authors discuss the reciprocity of caring, and show that care has become a “fictitious commodity†by combining the Polanyian with a neo-institutionalist perspective on home care agencies. The authors analyse how the 24-hour care market in Austria is embedded in the care regime and show how home care agencies broker care workers and sell care, which problems emerge from their point of view and how they try to handle them. The conclusion returns to care as a “fictitious commodity†and the reciprocity of caring and discusses how it is put at risk.