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SoSe 18: Who Cares for Whom? Anthropological Perspectives on Relationships of Care

Anita von Poser

Comments

In The Logic of Care, the anthropologist Annemarie Mol states: “Nobody ever said that care would be easy. (...) Establishing what ‘better’ might be is a difficult task and, once it seems to be clear, something is likely to change. (...) Good and bad are never settled in the logic of care” (Mol 2008: 87). Embarking on a dynamic understanding of the concept of care, this seminar aims at revealing the manifold ways in which relationships of care are made as well as unmade across time and space. In the first part of the seminar, we will engage ourselves with some introductory readings relating to the anthropology (and philosophy) of care/caring/being-cared-for in order to enquire different definitions of and approaches towards care. In the second part of the seminar, we will pursue a decidedly psychological anthropological approach by drawing our attention to the affects and emotions involved in the relationships between those who have or want to care and those who are in need of or wish to be cared for. close

Suggested reading

References
- Alber, E. & H. Drotbohm (eds.) 2015. Anthropological Perspectives on Care. Work, Kinship and the Life-Course. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
- Mol, A. 2008. The Logic of Care. Health and the Problem of Patient Choice. London & New York: Routledge.
- Zavoretti, R. & M. Nguyen (eds.) 2017. Beyond the Global Care Chain. Boundaries, Institutions and Ethics of Care. Special Issue in Journal of Ethics and Social Welfare.
- Thelen, T. 2015. Care as Social Organisation. Creating, Maintaining and Dissolving Significant Relations. Anthropological Theory 15 (4): 497-515.
- Tronto, J. C. 1993. Moral Boundaries. A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care. New York & London: Routledge.
- Tronto, J. C. 2013. Caring Democracy. Markets, Equality, and Justice. New York: New York University Press.?
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