Inquiry

The urgencies of the crisis of care compel us to interrogate how we value the often immaterial labour of sustaining and supporting communities, families, and other social bonds. What does it mean for society at large when this work is taken for granted and understood as an infinitely replenishable resource? Since care work has historically been a site of violence done both to domestic workers and those who depend on care, what other forms for this labour can we foster that do not depend on exchange? Is care work contingent on exchange? Proposals from artists and care workers suggest alternative modes of valuation for caring labour: from gift economies to mutual aid networks; from collectivized practices of care to advocacy for the dignity and fair compensation of migrant labourers; from intergenerational dialogue to alternative choreographies of globalized labour. These proposals for revaluing care resist the dominant capitalist model of what Letters and Handshakes call, quoting Marx, “accumulation for accumulation’s sake.” How might these proposals reorder how we relate to one another?