Re-placing care : Governing care through spatial arrangements

This chapter explores the meaning of place for health care governance. Although place is gaining importance in public health studies, it remains under theorized as an analytical concept. As a consequence, place is merely viewed as a context variable or a neutral backdrop for policymaking. This chapter provides a more dynamic reconceptualization of place by looking at the activity of replacing as a means to govern health care. Three different cases of re-placement of care are discussed that show how re-placements work out in practice: e-health, concentration of hospital care and neighbourhood care. The cases reveal not only the invisible work that is necessary to establish and maintain re-placements, but also demonstrate the political and symbolic uses of place for health care governance.