Home > Work > The Care Manifesto: The Politics of Interdependence
1 " Una visione politica realmente globale richiede allora di abbracciare quello che definiamo un cosmopolitismo quotidiano, una cura promiscua su scala globale che porti la nostra visione della cura al di là delle strutture di parentela, delle comunità e degli stati fino alle zone più remote ed “estranee” del pianeta. I soggetti cosmopoliti, letteralmente i “cittadini del mondo”, sono quelli che hanno a cuore il mondo. "
― , The Care Manifesto: The Politics of Interdependence
2 " Being cosmopolitan means being at ease with strangeness; knowing that we have no choice but to live with difference, whatever differences come to matter in specific times and places. "
3 " Care' is also a social capacity and activity involving the nurturing of all that is necessary for the welfare and flourishing of life. Above all, to put care centre stage means recognising and embracing our interdependencies. "
4 " Neoliberalism is uncaring by design. "
5 " The decimation of public spaces renders a sense of communal life increasingly difficult. There are fewer places for people to congregate, whether for relaxation and enjoyment, or to discuss issues of common concern or participate in collaborative projects. This heightens the competitive individualism that so often leads to loneliness and isolation, while having devastating repercussions for our ability to participate in democratic decision-making. "
6 " Dependence on care has been pathologised, rather than recognized as part of our human condition. "
7 " Se avremo tutti lo stesso accesso alle risorse pubbliche in caso di necessità, verrà meno la paura della fragilità e del bisogno degli altri.solo in questo modo potremmo sedare le paure e aumentare la fiducia nell’umanità che ci accomuna, a prescindere dalla molteplicità dei nostri bisogni in continuo mutamento, E soprattutto di quelli che abbiamo dovuto rinnegare o denigrare.(...).Mettere la cura al centro ci darebbe la tranquillità di vivere in un mondo capace di dare valore a ogni essere vivente e di leggere rigenerare le risorse ambientali, quelle interiori, o i frutti del lavoro da cui dipendiamo (...).Uno Stato di cura dunque non solo riproduce infrastrutture per la cura dalla culla alla tomba, ma genera anche nuove accezioni di appartenenza, cittadinanza e diritto, attraverso la risposta ai bisogni. "
8 " Such forms of what we might term 'carewashing' join a rich array of corporations trying to increase their legitimacy by presenting themselves as socially responsible 'citizens', while really contributing to inequality and ecological destruction. They go further by trying to capitalise on the very care crisis they have helped to create. "
9 " This recent legacy of supporting the private sector at the expense of the public sector has been perversely notable during the pandemic, with larger corporations conspicuously the only constituency not being asked to take a financial hit by the more right-wing states. And as the pandemic continues, we are witnessing how this period has become the occasion for increased outsourcing in many countries, including the UK. "
10 " These caring arrangements are unreliable and unjust. The nuclear family cannot be the assumed basic unit of care, nor can market outsourcing be the solution to the gender inequality of current care expectations or practices. In both cases, after all, women end up doing the lion's share of both unpaid and paid care work (two-thirds of paid and three-quarters of unpaid care work globally). Why should women have to do all this care work? And what if you don't have a family that can support you - what if your family has rejected you, or you have rejected them? What if you cannot afford to pay for privatised care services? At best, the consequences of this regime of care have often led to the neglect and isolation of those most in need of care, and at worst to needless sickness and death. The neoliberal insistence on only taking care of yourself and your closest kin also leads to a paranoid form of 'care for one's own' that has become one of the launch pads for the recent rise of hard-right populism across the globe. "
11 " One of the great ironies surrounding care is that it is actually the rich who are most dependent on those they pay to service them in innumerable personal ways. Indeed, their status and wealth are partly signified by the number of people they rely upon to provide constant support and attention, from nannies, housemaids, cooks and butlers to gardeners and the panoply of workers outside their households who service their every need and desire. "
12 " Moreover, the practices of care that recognise the complexity of human interactions also enhance our ability to reimagine and participate more fully in democratic processes at all levels of society. After all, working with and through ambivalence and contradictory emotions is key to building democratic communities. "
13 " Parallel to other theorists of subjective interdependency, the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas held that because the self is constituted only through its relationship to the other, we are ethically compelled to that other's care. Drawing on this idea and on cultures of hospitality, the French philosopher Jacques Derrida advocated an ethics of limitless hospitality to 'the stranger. "
14 " Crucially, libraries are places where there's no need to buy multiple copies of individual things or to contribute to overconsumption, because books can be shared. "
15 " The powerful community model of local libraries deserves to be both cherished and developed. Yet we can also move beyond books, to develop more 'libraries of things' and other forms of reuse and recirculation. In an era of imminent climate catastrophe, it is obscenely wasteful for people to buy hardware they might use only a few times a year, whether we are talking about power drills, expensive children's toys or waffle makers. It's possible to refuse the disastrous capitalist system of planned obsolescence and share objects within communities. As a result we would limit carbon emissions, save money, and develop our capacities to care not only for animate but also inanimate things. "