The provision of practical or emotional support. This definition is explored by Milligan and Wiles (2011) PHG 34, 6, 737–8, who note that geographers articulate care through the ‘differing, and sometimes surprising, social spaces that enable caring interactions’. A landscape of care describes places beneficial to one’s physical or mental health, such as clinics, gardens, hospitals, holy wells, temples, retreats, and spas.

Geographies of care study the spatial dimensions of social practices of care. Williams (2002) Soc. Sci. & Medic. 55, 141 writes that, in the UK ‘changes in health care service delivery have resulted in the transfer of care from formal spaces such as hospitals and institutions towards informal settings such as home. Due to the degree of this transfer, it is increasingly important for geographers to explore the experience and meaning of these changing geographies of care in order to reveal and understand the impact and effect on particular individuals and places’. See also the 2003 issue of Soc. & Cult. Geog. 4, 4.