Care Ethics and Place Geography

[bemusedbibliophile]

Caring for person-to-person relations involves understanding how difference is socially constructed, and so a critical ethic of care must be coupled with analysis of the structures and institutions that reproduce exclusion, oppression, environmental degradation, and on the like. I argue for bringing a critical ethic of care into conversation with feminist political-economy, with political-ecology, with geospatial analysis, with physical geography in order to build theoretical and empirical analyses of the structural and historical relationships producing disease, hunger, poverty, environmental decline, and disasters—or more broadly—the need for care.

Victoria Lawson, Geographies of Care and Responsibility, pg.7 (via bemusedbibliophile)

[bemusedbibliophile]

Care ethics suggests a broad range of methods and an expansion in what counts as evidence in our work. This will include evidence about the nature of social relations and networks and about the role of emotions in posing research questions and/or in mobilizing networks and specific actions. Caring research may take many forms, and the concern of care ethics with mutuality, well-being, and constructive engagement suggests a key role for participatory research. For some, as in the above examples, this will involve engaging in specific struggles and strategies as part of their research. As we engage with people, places, and networks, a key challenge is to construct these engagements in ways that don’t reduce care to a moral motive rather than a moral response. Our responsibility is to attend to grounded lives, politics, and specific interrelations rather than abstract notions of our responsibilities to ‘‘others,’’ whether in our classrooms, policy arenas, or political involvements. Our constructive response to care ethics is to responsibly learn and act.

Victoria Lawson, Geographies of Care and Responsibility, pg.9 (via bemusedbibliophile)

[geographyofcare]

Ethic of Care is a theory that is centered around the interdependence of all individuals. It takes into account the fact that certain communities and people are more vulnerable than others, and that you (as the non-vulnerable population) should afford extra consideration to the vulnerable community depending on how they are affected by your choices. Ethic of care also asserts that there is no universal truth; it considers the contextual details of a moral situation to promote the specific needs and interests of the vulnerable communities.

Ethic of Care is a theory that highlights the interdependence of all individuals. It talks about how certain communities and people are more vulnerable than others, and that the non-vulnerable population should afford extra consideration to the vulnerable communities while making decisions that might affect them. However, Ethic of Care does not promote a dependency relationship between people but talks about maintaining a relationship of interdependence and mutual efforts and benefits. Hence, Ethic of Care declares that by interacting with a community that can be considered vulnerable, you should maintain a relationship of mutual opportunity and benefits, as well as consider the implications of your decision and if they have the potential to be harmful to the community.

Another important aspect of the Ethic of Care theory is that it highlights the importance of a lack of universal truth, and of taking into account contextual details. Therefore, Ethic of Care would stress the idea that there is no one formula for International Engagement, and would consider contextual details of each place such as the local customs and traditions, culture, economy, history and so forth.

http://ethicsofisl.ubc.ca/?page_id=170

[geographyofcare]

Ghana Thinktank

Ghana Thinktank has been “Developing the First World" since 2006. We collect problems in the U.S. and Europe, and send them to think tanks we established in Cuba, Ghana, Iran, Mexico, El Salvador, and the U.S. prison system to analyze and solve. 

[geographyofcare]

Ananya Roy Can We Shop to End Poverty?

[geographyofcare]

As 'Voluntourism' Explodes In Popularity, Who's It Helping Most?

More young adults and teens are swapping suntanning and sightseeing for working in orphanages, building schools and teaching English abroad.

[geographyofcare]

4 Ways Humanitarian Work Abroad Reinforces the Oppression It Should Be Fighting

Charities can be incredibly problematic – but humanitarianism is a billion dollar industry. Before you send your next donation or study abroad, here's what you need to know about the problems, and what effective charity work looks like.

[geographyofcare]

"For the last decade, recent college grads have been banging down the doors at places like Ashoka and Skoll World Forum...to be sure, a lot of those grads are doing powerful work.

But a lot of them, let’s be real, are not. They’re making big mistakes — both operationally and culturally — in countries they aren’t familiar with. They’re solving problems for people, rather than with, replicating many of the mistakes that the world’s largest development agencies make on a much smaller scale."

The Reductive Seduction of Other People’s Problems

[geographyofcare]

Ananya Roy’s Who See’s Poverty