Why Care?

"Care can be hard work: it can be messy, dirty, exhausting, burdensome and boring. At the same time, caring can be joyful, bountiful, and beautiful […]. Due to our collective dependence upon care for our survival, it is not possible to give up on care rather we need to ‘stay with the trouble’ of care in order to rework our collective understanding of care responsibility."

Miriam Williams (2020)

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Care has many definitions. It is practiced in endless ways. And, as Miriam Williams and many others argue, we are dependent upon care for our survival. This is why care matters. Its centrality to our everyday lives means that we need to take care seriously. We need to ask critical questions about who does and does not receive the care they need to live well. We need to acknowledge who is doing the work of care, in order to consider how it can be more equitably distributed. We need to map where care needs are met, and where they are not. This work is crucial for re-imagining a world where we care with one another, human and non-human alike.

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