Care ethics week 7

Bellacasa main idea:

Rethinking what 'care' means and expanding it beyond human relationships. She wants us to see care as a messy, ambivalent and politically significant practice of maintaining relationships and worlds, which can also disrupt existing ways of valuing and understanding both humans and nonhumans.

How does Bellacasa describe care?

Care is complicated and ambivalent. It is not automatically 'good', for it can be controlling and oppressive as well as loving and supportive.

Care dimensions (3)

Care as work/labour: the practical work of maintaining life

Care as affect: feelings such as concern, affection, worry, or attachment.

Care as ethics/politics: questions about responsibility, power, and what counts as a "good" way of living.

--> can conflict with each other

more-than-human worlds

Care should expand to include animals, plats, environments, technologies etc. We have to decentre humans.

Speculative ethics

She does not want to create a fixed moral rule saying "this is what good care always looks like." Instead, she asks: "How to care?" --> situated answer. it depends on relationships, circumstances, etc. There is no universal answer.

Why does Bellacasa call care 'disruptive'?

Care can challenge existing ways of thinking and existing hierarchies.

Zuniga main idea

care ethics and disability studies should extend their focus beyond human relationships to include the natural world. We are interdependent with humans, animals, plants, earth, etc.

Anthropocentrism + Western vision on humans

Putting humans at the centre of everything. However, we have to ask what human we imagine when talking about humanity. Western view on humans is rational, independent, disembodied. We should avoid imagining humanity as homogeneous group. --> Zuniga asks 'which human/which anthropos?' We have to rethink humanity and relationship with human world.

Realist vs constructivist debate

-Constructivists emphasize that our understanding of "nature" is shaped by culture, language, history and society.

-Realists argue that nature also exists independently of how humans describe or understand it.

--> Zuniga says that humans shape nature, but nature is not merely an idea.

Ecological awareness

learning to perceive ourselves as part of an interconnected living world rather than treating nature as merely a collection of resources for humans.

Anthropos

Means 'human being'. Traditional anthropos is rational, independent, autonomous, disembodied, etc. This human does not exist, for we are all embodied etc.

We shouldn't say that humanity is the problem for destroying environment, why?

Because not all humans have had the same power or responsibility for environmental destruction. So when we say "humanity is responsible for climate/environmental destruction," we risk pretending that everyone has contributed equally and is affected equally. Zúñiga says this ignores gender, race, class, colonialism and economic power.

Hamington main idea:

Care is embodied. It is not only something we think or feel; it is also something we do through our bodies.

Caring is a way of knowing

When you care about someone, you want to understand them better. Therefore, caring involves an active process of inquiry: paying attention and learning about the other person.

Tacit knowledge

Our bodies contain tacit knowledge. knowledge that we have without consciously thinking about it or being able to put it into words.

Bodily habits

Repeated experiences create bodily habits. E.g. nurses notice changes in patients, respond to those, use touch and movement.

Hamington definition embodied care

an approach to personal and social morality that shifts ethical considerations to context, relationships, and affective knowledge in a manner that can be fully understood only if care's embodied dimension is recognized. Care is committed to the flourishing and growth of individuals yet acknowledges our interconnectedness and interdependence

Imaginative empathy

we use our own embodied experiences as a starting point for imagining another person's experience. --> can be wrong. we should never assume we completely understand one another.

Somatic cultivation

healthcare professionals should learn to become more aware of their own bodies and bodily experiences.

Prototypes

A prototype is basically an embodied, lived example or pattern that we develop through experience before we can put it into an abstract concept. e.g. a child experiencing care before they can understand the abstract concept of it. We have an embodied understanding of what a caring interaction looks and feels like. They aren't fixed. they can change and develop through new experiences.

Hamington podcast three forms of care

1. Inquiry: knowing the other. Learning about person and their situation

2. connection: relating to the other. Involves empathy and imagination. but don't assume to know what the other feels.

3. Action: doing something for the other. Care has to result in action

Care is anti-formula

it doesn't give you a universal rule telling you exactly what to do.