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Paper short abstract:

When researching a telecare practice, different forms of good care appear. Through the case of Bob, a patient of a telecare project, I will discuss normativity-in-the making of nurses and researchers. I will show how different forms of good care can become bad care and what good research should be.

Paper long abstract:

When performing research in care practices, there is care all around. Caring for patients, caring for technology and caring for respondents. All involved feel that care should be good, but what counts as good is, can differ. In this paper I will discuss different forms of care and varieties in the 'good' of patients, nurses and researchers. The case of Bob, one of the patients of a telecare project for patients with severe mental illnesses, who live at home, is an example of my fieldwork. I will demonstrate how in an innovative practice different forms of good care can lead to bad care. I also will discuss what good research is in such practices, as good research is also about care. I will argue the importance of care in knowledge making, through good methods and naming the matters of concern. In researching how humans and non-humans in the telecare practice change care, which might pressure what good care is, I bring forward those changes which can help nurses and patients establish the good. Through and in this research I care. I will discuss the normativity-in-the-making of the nurses, but also of myself, as I do agree with Puig de la Bellacasa that care is an affective state, actual doing and about a 'moral political obligation', which is all about normativity-in- the-making. I will discuss where my care, including my normativity, is in my research and if that is where it should be.