What would happen if we put care at the very centre of life?
The premise of this manifesto is a call for an expansion of the concept of care. Through it’s emphasis on interdependence, it’s asking for promiscuous care, or care without boundaries—specifically in opposition to the designed uncaring of neoliberal capitalism with the aegis on individual responsibility.
This volume addresses many angles in which the current system is failing and offers alternatives centered around this expanded notion of promiscuous care: “caring more and in ways that remain experimental and extensive by current standards. We have relied upon ‘the market’ and ‘the family’ to provide too many of our caring needs for too long. We need to create a more capacious notion of care” (page 41).
“Over the past few decades, many of us have experienced living in an accelerating social system of organised loneliness. We have been encouraged to feel and act like hyper-individualised, competitive subjects who primarily look out for ourselves. But in order to really thrive we need caring communities. We need localised environments in which we can flourish: in which we can support each other and generate net works of belonging. We need conditions that enable us to act collaboratively to create communities that both support our abilities and nurture our interdependencies.”
– The Care Manifesto, page 45
The book tracks four entangled areas of infrastructure that are necessary to enact communities of care: mutual support, public spaces, shared resources, and local democracy. I appreciate this turning of care from only an individual practice to something that can be embedded and enacted structurally. I think many of these ideas fit well into the concept of the university as well, as the university system mirrors the market system with siloed departments and resources that encourage not mutuality but individuality.
I’m returning to thinking about the commons (a concept of collectively or “commonly” owned public space) as an aspect of care. Can there be commons in privately held spaces? The book mentions ideas of public-commons partnerships that I’ll look into more. In some ways UAL is like it’s own nation with each school it’s own state. Within CSM for example, there are tight internal borders and ID cards that function as keys to only classrooms that are part of your course. This sort of internal physical siloing also halts or severely limits the “public” spaces available to exchange with others.
Is the university a caring place? The authors argue that “all education and vocational training needs to emphasise care and caretaking practices, developing the capabilities of each person to hone their caring skills” (p.63). By placing such emphasis on the idea of care, the authors are making a strong case for it’s importance. I think that the sort of interdisciplinarity that I’m seeking, the desire to support students and create systems that support them better is rooted in this idea of care.
Care is about interdependencies and acknowledging them rather than following the fallacy of perceived individuality. All of the ideas presented help solidify that ideas like “care” “community” “support” or what I like to refer to as connective tissues, or areas between, are vital and worthy of attention.