PANNEL 2 /// RECOGNIZING CARE WORK: AT THE INTERSECTION BETWEEN LOVE AND OBLIGATION
CONVENOR: CATARINA NEVES
All inquiries about the panel should be sent to [email protected]
While fundamental to our existence, and the foundation of every economic system, care work /or reproductive work, care work has often been overlooked in debates of political philosophy. Such a dismissal might not come as surprising: the tradition of political philosophy is intertwined with liberal thinking, where ideas of the self-sustaining individual are upheld, and a stark division between private and public domains is drawn in theoretical discussions, and proposals for public policies. The latter point contributes to amplify this dismissal, by highlighting a certain murkiness around care work. In the boundary between private and public, care work is associated with values of love, esteem, compassion, kindness, which serve to argue that discussing money will be corrupting such values or lead to misunderstandings about what is implied in care work. While feminist thinkers have worked to reaffirm the role of care work, albeit in different ways (Julie Nelson, Nancy Folbre, Arlie Hoschschild, Deborah Stone, Mignon Duffy, Anca Gheaus) care work is still often portrayed in an incomplete manner, as mostly a labor of love (with ‘other forms of care’, such as domestic work, being considered menial and routinely), or dismissed altogether in discussions about work, distribution and justice.
The theoretical dismissal of care work seems to mirror its lack of recognition in society. While almost everyone is said to perform or benefit from some form of care i.e., domestic, family, health, care work is still undervalued. Care workers often are not receiving any wage or are being paid a meager wage for the work they conduct, while also being subjected to precarious working arrangements. Moreover, the lack of recognition further amplifies existing injustices, given the role that gender and race plays in determining who cares for whom. The last decades have also seen a surge in transnational networks of care workers, with Eastern European women performing the lion share of underpaid care work in western Europe, and the same happening with women from the Philippines and other Asian countries doing the same in United States, alongside African American.
While care workers are still denied recognition, caring necessities seem to be taking central stage in discussions on the welfare state. Ageing populations in most western countries, and the impacts of Covid-19 and lockdowns highlighted the need for care workers – nurses, health aids – but also the strains associated with an uneven and gendered distribution of care. Political philosophy might be well positioned to pose some of these debates, if it acknowledges the historical dismissal of the phenomenon in its debates, and pledges to engage with existing feminist literature on the topic. This call for papers aims to provide an additional contribution to this debate, exploring the phenomenon of care work in all of its dimensions.
Topics might include:
All inquiries about the panel should be sent to [email protected]
While fundamental to our existence, and the foundation of every economic system, care work /or reproductive work, care work has often been overlooked in debates of political philosophy. Such a dismissal might not come as surprising: the tradition of political philosophy is intertwined with liberal thinking, where ideas of the self-sustaining individual are upheld, and a stark division between private and public domains is drawn in theoretical discussions, and proposals for public policies. The latter point contributes to amplify this dismissal, by highlighting a certain murkiness around care work. In the boundary between private and public, care work is associated with values of love, esteem, compassion, kindness, which serve to argue that discussing money will be corrupting such values or lead to misunderstandings about what is implied in care work. While feminist thinkers have worked to reaffirm the role of care work, albeit in different ways (Julie Nelson, Nancy Folbre, Arlie Hoschschild, Deborah Stone, Mignon Duffy, Anca Gheaus) care work is still often portrayed in an incomplete manner, as mostly a labor of love (with ‘other forms of care’, such as domestic work, being considered menial and routinely), or dismissed altogether in discussions about work, distribution and justice.
The theoretical dismissal of care work seems to mirror its lack of recognition in society. While almost everyone is said to perform or benefit from some form of care i.e., domestic, family, health, care work is still undervalued. Care workers often are not receiving any wage or are being paid a meager wage for the work they conduct, while also being subjected to precarious working arrangements. Moreover, the lack of recognition further amplifies existing injustices, given the role that gender and race plays in determining who cares for whom. The last decades have also seen a surge in transnational networks of care workers, with Eastern European women performing the lion share of underpaid care work in western Europe, and the same happening with women from the Philippines and other Asian countries doing the same in United States, alongside African American.
While care workers are still denied recognition, caring necessities seem to be taking central stage in discussions on the welfare state. Ageing populations in most western countries, and the impacts of Covid-19 and lockdowns highlighted the need for care workers – nurses, health aids – but also the strains associated with an uneven and gendered distribution of care. Political philosophy might be well positioned to pose some of these debates, if it acknowledges the historical dismissal of the phenomenon in its debates, and pledges to engage with existing feminist literature on the topic. This call for papers aims to provide an additional contribution to this debate, exploring the phenomenon of care work in all of its dimensions.
Topics might include:
- The gendered and racialized nature of care work.
- The global-local nexus of care, and the legal standing of transnational care workers: what injustices are they suffering? What do we owe such workers?
- Motivations of care work: in between love, kindness, compassion, duty, and obligation?
- The justice in distribution of care work: should care work be incorporated in discussions on distributional justice, and how?
- Should care be a duty or obligation of citizenship?
- What role can philosophy have in contributing to put care at the center of discussions?
- Is there room to discuss care ethics as an alternative to virtue ethics or an ethics of justice?