Care Ethics

This pioneering book, in considering intellectually disabled peoples lives sets out a care ethics model of disability that outlines the emotional caring sphere, where love and care are psycho-socially questioned, the practical caring sphere, where day-to-day care is carried out and the socio-political caring sphere, where social intolerance and aversion to difficult differences are played out. It does so by discussing issue based everyday life, such as family, relationships, media representations and education in an evocative and creative manner. This book draws from an understanding of how intellectual disability is represented in all forms of media, a feminist ethics of care, and capabilities, as well as other theories, to provide a critique and alternative to the social model of disability as well as illuminate care-less spaces that inhabit all the caring spheres. The first two chapters of the book provides an overview of intellectual disability, the debates and outlining of the model. Having begun to develop an innovative theoretical framework for understanding intellectual disability and being human, the book moves onto empirical and narrative driven issue based chapters. The following chapters builds on the emergent framework and discusses the application of particular theories in three different substantive areas: education, mothering and sexual politics. A concluding remarks draws together the common themes across the applied chapters and links them to the overarching theoretical framework.

An important read for all those studying and researching intellectual or learning disability, this book will be an essential resource in sociology, philosophy, criminology (law), social work, education and nursing in particular.

Etika péče je nový a dynamicky se rozvíjející směr morální filosofie. Zatímco tradiční etické systémy zaměřují svou pozornost především na činy a vlastnosti jednotlivců, etika péče vyzdvihuje morální význam vzájemných vztahů osob a skupin. Tato kniha představuje etiku péče jako svébytnou normativní teorii. Virginia Held, jedna z hlavních představitelek tohoto etického směru, v ní objasňuje charakteristické znaky péče a vysvětluje, v čem se etika péče liší od tradičních etických koncepcí, jako jsou kantovská etika, utilitarismus a etika ctností. Held péči vymezuje jako základní morální hodnotu a praxi a uvádí důvody, proč a za jakých okolností by péče měla mít přednost před morálními požadavky spravedlnosti a nestrannosti. Hodnoty péče, důvěry a solidarity zároveň pokládá za vhodný doplněk spravedlnosti či úcty k právům jednotlivce. Kniha se dále věnuje problematice využití etiky péče při řešení sociálních, politických a globálních otázek současnosti – ať už jde o otázky omezení trhu, koncepce školství a zdravotnictví, reformy sociálního státu či globální ekonomické a mocenské nerovnováhy, zde všude má perspektiva péče své přednosti.

What exactly keeps women ‘in’ inequitable care relationships, and how do we get ‘out’? This dissertation offers a timely response to a pressing societal problem – that of how to understand and organize care. Feminist scholarship and debates focus on the redistribution of care, considering how to shift care responsibilities from women to men or from individuals to the state. My research expands this work by critically reflecting on (shifting) relationships between women and the care economy with a focus on the moral dimensions of care work and on the narrative, intrasubjective work that women do.

The research mobilizes sociological theories of care work, gender and moral worth, and uses feminist life history and arts-based, auto-ethnographic methods to contribute to a conceptual reimagining of “care.” Taking an interpretive, narrative, feminist approach, I draw on 20 in-depth life history interviews with 12 participants, as well as on my own autoethnographic experiences as a live-in care worker at L’Arche. I analyze how women narrate renegotiating care responsibilities or expectations across our lives and in different paid and unpaid care contexts in Ontario, Canada. Making links to class, gender and conditions in the caring economy, the project contextualizes women’s narratives of orienting to projects of care, negotiating moral dilemmas at the limits of care, and stepping back from or renegotiating care responsibilities.

The study enriches feminist theories of care by developing a theorized account of the “relational care economy” that makes intrasubjective conditions, and the contradictions that people negotiate, central. I also contribute to a conceptual reimagining of “care” both by raising questions about whether “care as an ethic” should apply at the level of individual women’s lives, as well as by calling for a conception of care that makes limits central. Aiming to foster solidarity amongst carers in different roles, I ask tough questions about what we expect of ourselves and others, how we can stop setting women up for such intimate losses, and how our lives can be otherwise.

A partir del análisis de la Encuesta sobre percepciones de la desigualdad de género en la Justicia de la CABA, el artículo analiza información poco abordada en el país, sobre la organización familiar y el uso del tiempo de los y las trabajadoras de este sector, y nos permite conocer las condiciones de una población particular que, en el muy diverso universo laboral de la Argentina, goza de protecciones muy ventajosas con respecto a otros sectores. Al colocar la lupa sobre las imágenes y prácticas de género en la vida personal y familiar de las y los operadores de la Justicia, no solo nos ofrece información sobre un sector particular, contextualizándolo y " humanizándolo " , sino que además, permite inferir la complejidad de la interacción de los/as trabajadores/as del Poder Judicial en los ámbitos de la familia y el trabajo como un objeto en sí mismo relevante. Las tensiones persistentes en las formas de conciliación entre vida familiar y vida laboral de los trabajadores y las trabajadoras judiciales dejan entrever zonas de discriminación, que aunque no siempre se perciban como tales, perduran. doméstica de los y las trabajadoras judiciales.

Ce que les phénomènes et les événements politiques et économiques contemporains nous apprennent, c'est que, contrairement à ce que les grandes idéologies nous avaient laissé croire, l'histoire n'est pas là de finir. L'histoire n'en a pas fini de finir et, si elle se termine un jour, ce sera probablement plus sur le mode de la catastrophe que sous la forme de lendemains qui chantent. Alors que le marxisme nous avait fait miroiter l'horizon d'une société sans classes, la chute du modèle soviétique avait conduit certains penseurs libéraux, tel Francis Fukuyama, à imaginer un monde dans lequel la démocratie et les lois du marché s'étendraient à toute la planète. Le monde se serait alors engagé vers un processus de pacification résultant des vertus du commerce des choses et des idées. Or, il n'en est rien. Le système capitaliste semble aujourd'hui tout aussi fragile que l'était son image inversée qui s'est effondrée dans les années 90 et les contradictions qui le traversent n'ont pas disparu avec l'échec de l'alternative collectiviste. Les inégalités se creusent. La société de consommation qui nous incite à produire et à détruire au plus vite cette production pour pouvoir continuer à faire fonctionner le système-au point que nous en sommes arrivés au règne de l'obsolescence programmée-aboutit à des conséquences environnementales désastreuses. Les passions nationalistes et religieuses semblent renaître de leurs cendres et l'obscurantisme semble gagner chaque jour du terrain. Bref, les idéaux du siècle des Lumières sont en bien mauvaise posture et il est urgent de leur redonner une nouvelle force si nous ne voulons pas retomber dans les affres qu'a traversé la première moitié du XXe siècle. Nous avons parfois le sentiment de voguer sur un bateau en train de sombrer pendant que certains écopent pour le maintenir tant bien que mal à flot, tout en sachant que le naufrage est inéluctable. Comment se garantir du pessimisme auquel peut conduire un tel constat ? Peut-être en profitant de ce retour de l'histoire pour inventer de nouvelles formes de vie sociale, de nouveaux modèles économiques à la fois innovants et respectueux des

We can seek out strategies and experts to help us teach effectively face-to-face with a mask. Colleagues in my field of communication and those in allied disciplines like theater and dance know how to mobilize nonverbal strategies and images. Furthermore, interdisciplinary studies of women and gender, public health, and inclusive pedagogy have already advanced useful theories and solutions to related issues. I explain four challenges to teaching with a mask: masks dehumanize and medicalize the classroom; masks hide our faces and emotions; masks stifle speech and sound; and masks divide us. I then offer specific pedagogical strategies for overcoming them.

The account that follows depicts a visit with my neurologist. The visit was one of many within a five-month period of navigating various medical spaces to get to the bottom of the illness that was ailing me. It speaks to the systemic and cultural dimensions of illness that threaten to undermine medical understandings, diagnosis and treatment, alongside personal narratives of suffering.

Full thesis is available through the Cork Open Access Archive, here: https://cora.ucc.ie/handle/10468/12426
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Although the term ‘infantilisation’ is used across disciplines and in different contexts, its meaning is frequently unclear. Where adults are infantilized, are they treated -as- children or -like- children, or merely in some child-appropriate ways? Are they thought of as child-like, or as defective adults, or as children in the bodies of adults? Is infantilisation distinct from paternalism, or only a severe example of it? In this thesis I develop a concept and theory of infantilisation which addresses these questions. Both concept and theory are grounded in empirical studies on the infantilisation of adults in elderly care settings and of physically and cognitively disabled adults (both in care and in the community). I argue that infantilisation is conceptually distinct from paternalism, that it is an inapt conceptualization of any adult, and that the treatments which stem from it are harmful. I conclude that the infantilisation of adults – cognitively disabled or not – is both a social injustice and a conceptual failure.

Iris Murdoch fait partie des philosophes qui, durant la deuxième partie du 20eime siècle, questionnèrent et critiquèrent la place du raisonnement en philosophie morale. Murdoch propose d'insister sur d'autres aspects de notre psychologie morale, qui sauront mettre en lumière notre sensibilité à ce qui est pertinent moralement, mais qui ne relève pas de notre raisonnement. Elle questionne aussi ces philosophies morales qui considèrent que ce qui compte moralement peut se réduire au choix et à l'action. Elle déplore cette approche qui laisse peu, ou pas, de place pour considérer la psychologie et le caractère de l'agent dans son entièreté et sa complexité. Murdoch propose plusieurs métaphores de vision pour montrer de quelle façon nous accumulons, d'une certaine façon, constamment une certaine forme de connaissance morale tout au long de nos vies éveillées. Nous voyons, percevons, recevons, nous sommes frappés par le flow continu de la vie et ceci n'est pas une mince affaire. D'ailleurs Murdoch suggère que bien souvent, au moment du choix, la décision est déjà prise et notre raisonnement y est pour bien peu dans le fait de diriger notre action. Son idée d'attention, ou d'attention morale, sera centrale pour comprendre son propos, puisqu'elle considère cette forme d'attention comme la bonne façon de voir le monde et de se disposer pour se rendre compte de ce qui importe moralement. Dans cette présentation, je vais principalement présenter ce qu'est l'attention morale pour Murdoch, sa pertinence et la place que cette notion tient dans le plus grand contexte de la psychologie morale d'aujourd'hui. Comme nous le verrons, l'attention morale de Murdoch a beaucoup influencé les recherches faites sur la perception morale et en éthique du Care.

A partir del análisis de la Encuesta sobre percepciones de la desigualdad de género en la Justicia de la CABA, el artículo analiza información poco abordada en el país, sobre la organización familiar y el uso del tiempo de los y las trabajadoras de este sector, y nos permite conocer las condiciones de una población particular que, en el muy diverso universo laboral de la Argentina, goza de protecciones muy ventajosas con respecto a otros sectores. Al colocar la lupa sobre las imágenes y prácticas de género en la vida personal y familiar de las y los operadores de la Justicia, no solo nos ofrece información sobre un sector particular, contextualizándolo y " humanizándolo " , sino que además, permite inferir la complejidad de la interacción de los/as trabajadores/as del Poder Judicial en los ámbitos de la familia y el trabajo como un objeto en sí mismo relevante. Las tensiones persistentes en las formas de conciliación entre vida familiar y vida laboral de los trabajadores y las trabajadoras judiciales dejan entrever zonas de discriminación, que aunque no siempre se perciban como tales, perduran. doméstica de los y las trabajadoras judiciales.

Nursing Ethics has published several pleas for care ethics and/or relationality as the most promising ethical foundation for midwifery philosophy and practice. In this article, we stand by these calls, contributing to them with the identification of the structural form of violence that a care ethical relational approach to reproductive care is up against: that of "maternal separation". Confronted with reproductive and obstetric violence globally, we show that a hegemonic racialized, instrumentalized, and individualized conception of pregnancy is responsible for a severance of relationalities that are essential to safe reproductive care: (1) the relation between the person and their child or reproductive capabilities; and (2) the relation between the pregnant person and their community of care. We pinpoint a separation of the maternal relation in at least two discursive domains, namely, the juridical-political and the ethical-existential. Consequently, we plea for a radical re-imagination of maternal relationality, envisioning what care ethical midwifery, including abortion care, could be.

Il libro è scaricabile gratuitamente/The book is in open access (https://www.ledonline.it/ledonline/844-etica-cura-differenza.html)       
ABSTRACT:«La vita è fatta di rapporti e della cura che vi mettiamo» e perché essa sia preservata, ovvero perché noi e gli altri si abbia una «buona vita» ce ne dobbiamo prendere cura, prestando attenzione a ciò che è importante in quelle relazioni, nella loro specificità, tenendo presente le dinamiche concrete, la loro «verità», ma anche la difficoltà di coglierla; prendendoci cura di come ci prendiamo cura. Questo il fulcro dell’etica della cura che qui si propone. L’etica della cura è riconosciuta come uno dei più interessanti contributi del pensiero femminista alla riflessione morale, ed anche come un interessante paradigma morale in sé: la diversa visione della morale che questo approccio offre ha avuto infatti un impatto importante sulla riflessione filosofica sulla morale, come anche sulla vita quotidiana di molte persone, poiché ha permesso di riguadagnare o illuminare il valore – morale appunto – di una serie di pratiche, atteggiamenti e gesti diffusi; ha permesso, cioè, di portare a visibilità e di dare un significato a una serie di tratti dell’esperienza umana lasciati in ombra da altre teorizzazioni della morale. L’itinerario proposto in questo volume mostra che tipo di sviluppi si devono pensare, rispetto alle prime formulazioni di questo paradigma, o a quelle più diffuse, perché il ripensamento della morale implicito in questo paradigma si dispieghi nelle sue potenzialità e si dimostri davvero adeguato e all’altezza del tempo presente e delle sue consapevolezze, soprattutto quelle relative alla difficoltà di vedere e incontrare l’altro, coglierne i bisogni e prendersene cura, una volta che si sia messa in dubbio l’idea che esita un modo solo di essere umani, giungendo così a darne una riformulazione articolata ed inedita.

“Disabilità, giustizia, diritto” è uno studio finalizzato a comprendere se nel panorama gius-filosofico contemporaneo le persone con disabilità siano annoverate tra i soggetti di giustizia e di diritto. Data la complessità del tema, gli itinerari percorsi a tal fine sono molteplici: essi spaziano dal neo-contrattualismo rawlsiano all’approccio delle capacità, dall’etica della cura a quella della vulnerabilità, dal percorso foucaultiano a quello dell’età dei diritti, fino a indagare quale possa essere la compatibilità tra l’astratto soggetto di diritto razionale ed i concreti soggetti con disabilità, che reclamano il proprio diritto all’inclusione. “Disabilità, giustizia e diritto” percorre tali itinerari valorizzando la prospettiva dei Disability Studies che, avendo favorito quel passaggio da una visione “medico-individualista” ad una “sociale” della disabilità oggi recepita anche in ambito normativo – in particolare, si pensi alla Convenzione Onu sui diritti delle persone con disabilità (2006) –, aprono scenari in parte ancora inesplorati, costituendo una sfida difficile, ma al contempo interessante ed indifferibile, per la riflessione filosofico-giuridica contemporanea.

There is a question that can and needs to be raised anew, namely whether Stein’s thought on woman is worth studying – not merely for its historical interest but for what Stein can contribute to today’s ongoing debates on feminist theory and philosophy. One of Stein’s attentive feminist interpreters asked this question more than 20 years ago and provided sound reasons for a positive answer. In this chapter, I want to raise this question again and I aim to add some fresh arguments in support of a positive answer. I will do so with a special focus on Stein’s phenomenological and ethical contribution to contemporary feminist thought. In particular, I will apply Sara Heinämaa’s recent take on the classical phenomenological approach to sexual difference, in order to offer a new interpretative framework for Stein’s thought on woman. Moreover, I aim to argue in support of the claim that Stein anticipated much of the contemporary feminist ethics, particularly the ethics of care.

Iris Murdoch, Harry Frankfurt, and Michael Stocker all criticize modern (and especially liberal) moral theories for failing to accommodate love's apparent foundational importance. In this paper, I argue that these concerns highlight a real weakness of liberal morality, but that love as such does not offer a real alternative to liberal ethics. As such, we should seek a moral theory that accommodates love but does not leave it unrestrained. I then argue that Kantian ethics does precisely this, insofar as Kant's duty of charity or beneficence requires that we form and act on partiality toward those whom we benefit. I argue that the phenomenology of partial motivation on this view answers Murdoch, Frankfurt, and Stocker's objections and provides a useful gloss on Marcia Baron's analysis of primary and secondary motivations.

Konfuzianische Philosophie gilt oftmals eine streng autoritär-hierarchische. Menschen haben ihre Rollen zu erfüllen, gegenüber den Eltern, folgend Lehrenden, folgend Regierenden, ebenso gegenüber den Kindern, gegenüber den Schülern, den Untergebenen. Vor allem für Frauen ergibt sich eine problematische Situation, auf den zweiten Blick ebenso für Männer.
Die Feminist Care Ethic lässt sich aber wiederum gut mit Konfuzianischer Philosophie verbinden. In folgendem Text werden diese Verbindungen beleuchtet. Ebenso spannend sind Diskussionen, in denen sich Männer übergangen fühlen, da sie ebenso 'caring' sein könnten, aber sie haben dies nie zu ihrem Thema gemacht und so fragt sich, ob mit feministischen Bausteinen eine neue, echtere Ethik begründet werden könnte.

In this paper I presume that Justice and Care (and to a certain degree virtue) are the common concepts through which an ethic is formulated. Deontological and utilitarian ethics are founded in an ethic of justice that is rational, universal and ideally impartial. In contrast, an ethic of care is founded in an ethic that is emotional, individualised and partial. Each form, justice and care, is typically defined as the ideal form of ethics and as contradictory to the other. Yet, I intend to suggest that rather than contradicting, they in fact compliment one another; neither is more important to the social interactions of individuals - whether partial or impartial - and neither is technically greater, nor lesser, than the other. Nevertheless, I will suggest that justice develops out of a form of caring, and that justice is then universalised through an impartial frame of reference. Through this process of universalisation, justice extends beyond caring - beyond the individual - and into an ethical system of its own. Using a form of confucian ethics, I will contend that justice and care can operate in unison and that neither is oriented in gender

The definition of what is considered literacy is ever changing as is the literacy practices that are welcomed into a classroom space by ELA teachers. This collective case study explores the social positioning, trajectories, sedimentation, and negotiation of students’ identities, agency, and relationships in an English language arts (ELA) classroom that welcomes students’ unsanctioned literacy practices and is framed using the tenets of participatory culture and care ethics. The ELA classroom is a space particularly positioned well to foster student identity exploration; however, an ELA teacher may inadvertently curtail or even suppress student identity exploration when deciding what is taught, how it is taught, and when it is taught. In addition, any teacher—and I argue particularly an ELA teacher—is positioned to foster students’ relational growth through the establishment of caring relationships in a classroom space.
The study is founded in sociocultural theory which views literacy to be multiple, multimodal, and multilingual as situated in and across social and cultural contexts. With a sociocultural approach in mind, I conduct an eight-week-long collective case study of four high school students situated in a suburban high school located in the Southern United States in order to understand the trajectories their identities, agency, and relationships take in an ELA classroom intentionally designed to welcome any unsanctioned literacy practices into the classroom through
the making of zines. I observed their zine making over the course of eight weeks, and throughout that time I collected several sources of data, including video and audio recordings, written reflections, formal and informal interviews, a researcher’s journal, and their zine artifacts. In the inductive analysis of the data, I notice recurring themes such as the students’ negotiation of identity and agency when creating zines and their negotiation of their relationships with their peers when sharing and discussing their zines.
Results suggest that students can and do negotiate their identities using what they might perceive as typically unsanctioned literacy practices that are not always readily recognized in an ELA classroom. Students also can and do draw from the lived experiences to help them negotiate
their actions in the classroom, including how much they participate or engage in discourse with their peers and teacher. In addition, students who are exposed to the literacy practices of their
peers and share their own can and do develop more caring, empathetic relationships with their peers and teacher. As the four participants engaged in zine making, each was unique in which literacy practices they used and how they used them to negotiate their identity, how they
positioned themselves and took up, resisted, or rejected how others positioned them, and how they negotiated their relationships in the classroom. These findings are particularly important to
understanding how a classroom attempting to use the tenets of participatory culture as a framework for assignments and curriculum design may be beneficial to student identity work.
However, I argue educators should be wary of romanticizing participatory culture, as its tenets are more aspirational than tangible depending on the educational setting and context. It is more important to concentrate on exploring meaningful connections between students and their literacy practices and their relationships to one another in support of those practices.
This study offers new understandings and insights into the literacy practices of students and how those practices are connected to the negotiation of their identities, agency, and relationship trajectories. It calls for future longitudinal studies that may determine further nuances to the relationship between literacy practices and student identity formation as well as studies that look closer at the impact of identity exploration in the ELA classroom on students gaining deeper knowledge of the ELA curriculum and the differences in how male and female
students may take up identity exploration.

Participatory action research is often informed by strength-based approaches such as appreciative inquiry. However, when social change and collective action appear to be difficult, feelings of powerlessness and suffering can arise. There is an ongoing debate on the place and importance of these so-called negative emotions within strength-based approaches. In a participatory action research project on citizen participation in the Netherlands we encountered a social and political context that was beyond our ability to change. We came to realize that change or action is not always possible in partic-ipatory action research and that 'pushing' for action can become a disempowering experience for those involved. In this article we share the moral dilemmas that

The push for STEM has raised the visibility of engineering as a discipline which all students should learn. With the release of the Framework for K-12 Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), engineering now has an official place in the science curriculum. In both the Framework and the NGSS, engineering is framed as a way to solve the world's greatest problems. Despite this potential, there are troubling aspects in the way that engineering is presented in the Framework and NGSS and how engineering is taken up in the curriculum. In this paper, we use critiques of technocracy, utilitarianism, and neoliberalism to analyze the portrayal of engineering in the Framework and NGSS. We claim that the Framework and NGSS promote a technocratic perspective that all problems can be solved with engineered solutions, ignoring the socio-political foundations of many of the world's most pressing problems. Furthermore, both standards documents reflect a utilitarian ethic that promotes all progress as good and ignores issues of justice. Lastly, the Framework and NGSS betray neoliberal foundations that undermine education and engineering as public goods. To address some of these issues, others have argued for a greater emphasis on ethics. In response, we raise cautions because ethical framings present further intractable dilemmas. Instead, we draw on feminist theory to argue for reframing engineering education around an ethos of empathy and care. We call for a dimension of care that situates design problems in the full socio-political context and centralizes issues of justice. We provide an illustration of how an NGSS example activity for designing solar cookers could incorporate a dimension of care that addresses issues of power, inequality, and harm, providing students with opportunities to weigh and take responsibility for the real costs and benefits of their designs.

The Ethics of Care and Empathy makes a valuable contribution to contemporary discussions of care ethics on a number of fronts. Most significant is the engagement with empathy. Slote’s claim that empathy is an underdeveloped concept in ethical theorizing is correct, but perhaps just as compelling is the idea that in the present chilly state of world engagement,
empathy is a welcome topic of study with great potential for making a difference in social exchanges. The Ethics of Care and Empathy is a very clear and well-reasoned book that will not only be of interest to scholars, but is well positioned for mature classroom discussion as well.

Levinas' philosophical project is dedicated to the thought of non-violent relationships between people as the way to achieve goodness. Meeting the other person, one is always responsible for him. A personal caring relationship is at the core of this ethic. But in Leninas' later writings, there is a self-sacrificial turning point, and the language towards the subject who must substitute himself or herself for the other becomes violent. Is such violence to the self, capable of preserving goodness? From a common concern with goodness, defined as a personal caring relationship, care ethics preserves subjectivity, and thus avoids the self-sacrificial turning point. The caring relationship is based on the assumption that every person is vulnerable and dependent on others, including the self. Care ethics is non-violent. Taking this thought one step further, political institutions must be influenced by care ethics, and by its assumption of vulnerability as a universal aspect of the human condition, in order to avoid any type of violence, to nurture goodness.

All humans experience needs. At times needs cut deep, inhibiting persons’ abilities to act as agents in the world, to live in distinctly human ways, or to achieve life goals of significance to them. In considering such potentialities, several questions arise: Are any needs morally important, meaning that they operate as morally relevant details of a situation? What is the correct moral stance to take with regard to situations of need? Are moral agents ever required to tend to others’ well-being by meeting their needs? What justification or foundation, if any, can be given for requiring moral agents to respond to others’ needs?

This practice-based research sets out to investigate and intervene in the tense relation between the production of socially as well as politically relevant design work and the socio-economic precariousness many designers experience. Starting from an engagement with the precarious working conditions of designers, their genealogy over the last 30+ years and the role precarisation plays in forming docile creative subjects, the research moves on to a wider critique of the political economy and of its precarising value practices. Based on this analysis, it then considers the strategic use that can be made of concepts around the commons in order to undo procedures of precarisation.

The trajectory of this process of exploration is shaped through a series of practical experiments constructed around the inhabitation of support structures that allowed for a collective engagement with the issues and strategies researched. These inhabitations took as their starting point the resources my own design practice Brave New Alps was offered throughout this research. Thus, they took the form of two collectivised residencies, one of three months in Warsaw (My castle is your castle) and a second of two months in Milan (Cantiere per pratiche non-affermative), out of which a design collective emerged that still works together. The experiences from living through these support structures are the decisive elements that direct the engagement with theory in order to find elements helpful in overcoming blockages and loops in practice.

The core elements that emerged as helpful in moving this research forward were characterised by the practical as well as theoretical engagement with how designers are trained to accept and reproduce the conditions that precarise them, with how this training inserts itself in the wider logic of a capitalist economy and, finally, with how noncapitalist values can serve as points of orientation for constructing de-precarising design practices. Moving along these key points, the aim of this research is to provide a series of conceptual as well as practical tools for designers that can be mobilised in the creation of economic cultures that defy precarisation within and beyond the field of the profession. However, the research is not primarily concerned with stabilising precarious design practices as they are, it is rather concerned with creating the conditions in which it is possible for designers to imagine and actuate what they could become if not pressured by precariousness to conform to the needs of the market.

OTHER NOTES

PhD funded through a Design Fellowship at Goldsmiths, University of London, 2011-2013.

First supervisor: Dr. Jennifer Gabrys
Second supervisor: Prof. Bill Gaver

External examiner: Prof. Doina Petrescu (School of Architecture, University of Sheffield)
Internal examiner: Prof. Matthew Fuller (Centre for Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths)""

An elderly patient in a care home only wants human nurses to provide her care-not robots. If she selected her carers based on skin colour, it would be seen as racist and morally objectionable, but is choosing a human nurse instead of a robot also morally objectionable and speciesist? A plausible response is that it is not, because humans provide a better standard of care than robots do, making such a choice justifiable. In this paper, I show why this response is incorrect, because robots can theoretically care as well as human nurses can. I differentiate between practical caring and emotional caring, and I argue that robots can match the standard of practical care given by human nurses, and they can simulate emotional care. There is growing evidence that people respond positively to robotic creatures and carebots, and AI software is apt to emotionally support patients in spite of the machine's own lack of emotions. I make the case that the appearance of emotional care is sufficient, and need not be linked to emotional states within the robot. After all, human nurses undoubtedly 'fake' emotional care and compassion sometimes, yet their patients still feel adequately cared for. I show that it is a mistake to claim that 'the human touch' is in itself a contributor to a higher standard of care; 'the robotic touch' will suffice. Nevertheless, it is not speciesist to favour human nurses over carebots, because carebots do not (currently) suffer as the result of such a choice. The Robotic Touch 89 In the residential care home where Maude lives, there are some human nurses and some carebots. Maude only wants human nurses to provide her care. IF MAUDE ONLY WANTED white nurses to provide her care purely on the basis of their skin colour, we would claim she was being racist-so when she chooses a human nurse over a carebot purely on the basis of species membership 1 , why do we not claim she is being speciesist? Two plausible responses are: 1. Humans provide a better standard of care than robots do (making the choice of a human nurse over a carebot justifiable). 2. Robots do not have moral standing because they cannot suffer, and therefore there is nothing morally problematic about choosing a human over a robot. 2 I address the first of these responses and demonstrate that it is unfounded, because some robots are capable of providing a standard of care which is equal to or higher than that provided by human nurses. I further show that it is a mistake to claim that 'the human touch' is valuable simply because it comes from a human being.

Si la notion de care gagne en popularité depuis les trente dernières années dans des champs de
recherche aussi diversifiés que la psychologie du développement moral, l’éthique, l’économie et
la théorie politique, la réflexion féministe a toujours été, d’une manière ou d’une autre,
fondamentalement préoccupée par cette part dévalorisée du travail des femmes et par le rôle qu’a
joué un tel mépris dans la reproduction des inégalités liées au genre. Depuis le milieu des années
1990, la théorie politique féministe du care semble cependant avoir limité son point de
focalisation, pour se concentrer essentiellement autour des soins de santé fournis par les femmes,
aussi bien dans la famille que sur le marché, et des injustices qui découlent de l’attribution de
cette fonction de principale soignante aux femmes. Dans cet article, j’avance qu’il demeure
possible de réinvestir la théorie politique du care de son plein potentiel critique et féministe à la
condition de ne pas la limiter aux enjeux de société entourant la seule prise en charge de la
dépendance. Cette théorie peut aussi fournir l’armature conceptuelle nécessaire à l’appréhension
des injustices relatives à ce phénomène plus large et complexe qu’est la division genrée du
travail. Pour ce faire, la notion de care ne renverrait ainsi plus strictement aux soins prodigués
aux dépendants: de la même manière que le proposaient les féministes maternalistes et les
matérialistes, cette notion inclurait les services rendus par les femmes aux adultes indépendants,
et cela, aussi bien dans la sphère privée que publique : services domestiques, reproductifs, sexuels
et affectifs. C’est ce que je soutiens dans la première partie, pour montrer ensuite comment le
mythe de l’indépendance, qui traverse les paradigmes dominants en philosophie politique depuis
les premières formulations des théories contractualistes, a contribué à invisibiliser la part du care
fourni aux adultes indépendants. À cet égard, je souligne qu’une alliance théorique entre
féminisme matérialiste et théorie politique du care serait l’une des voies privilégiées pour
politiser la division genrée du travail.

In this chapter we (Chris and Carol) consider the genesis of the concept of 'social flesh', our imaginative reconceptualisation of social space and social relations. This concept emerged from a close working partnership over several years and from a series of joint publications.

Ce mémoire porte sur la relation entre le végétalisme et la tradition culinaire française, et plus particulièrement, sur la manière dont cette dernière est remise en question par le végétalisme. Il s’appuie notamment sur les témoignages de restaurateurs végétaliens, qui livrent alors leurs ressentis sur leur place au sein des restaurants, notamment traditionnels, français. Cette analyse permet alors de mettre en évidence les tensions qui émergent quant à la confrontation de ces deux modèles alimentaires
Dans un premier temps, les deux modèles d’alimentation sont analysés notamment dans les deux rapports différents aux animaux qu’ils présentent. L’importance de la viande et des produits issus de l’exploitation animale au sein de la tradition culinaire française est alors mise en évidence, bien que celle-ci soit en partie due à l’industrialisation massive des produits alimentaires issus de l’exploitation animale. Les fondements spécistes de la tradition découlent ainsi d’un rapport dominant à la nature. À l’inverse, le végétalisme se voit considéré comme une pratique qui traduit une vision plus globale qui considère les animaux non-humains comme des êtres sentients. Par leur capacité à souffrir, les animaux devraient alors bénéficier de droits qui assurent que leurs besoins vitaux sont remplis. La pertinence de la différence comme critère de discrimination et d’oppression des animaux est également remise en question.
Dans un second temps, la fonction de ciment social de la tradition est analysée. En effet, le rituel alimentaire est profondément fédérateur, il est ainsi difficile d’y introduire de nouvelles pratiques. La viande est aliment à forte symbolique, elle renvoie à la fête, au pouvoir et se voit, par sa rareté, être l’apanage des élites, et notamment des hommes. Cet ordre social bien établi se voit alors contrarié par la vision du monde proposée par le végétalisme, basée sur le respect du vivant, l’empathie et l’équité. Les végétalien·nes sortant de manière explicite de la norme, lors des repas, se voient rappelé·es à l’ordre, ou bien stigmatisé·es.
Dans un dernier temps, le végétalisme comme opportunité d’une réappropriation de la tradition est exploré, notamment en faisant converger certaines valeurs issues de la tradition avec des problématiques éthiques qui prennent en ampleur ces dernières années. La consistance morale du végétalisme est également remise en question, à l’heure ou les produits industriels végétaux envahissent les supermarchés et il est toujours associé à une certaine « blanchité » privilégiée. Nous pourrons alors constater qu’une convergence des luttes est nécessaire pour s’inscrire dans une démarche de respect du vivant dans sa globalité, dont le végétalisme peut être une des applications concrètes.