Care theory for the commons

Ondertitel:a feminist perspective on precarity and cultural commons-based organizations

The role of gender in assuming domestic and family responsibilities cannot be dissociated from the relatively smaller number of women – in comparison to men – participating in cultural employment. A higher percentage of women in the cultural sector have to balance the demands derived from an entrepreneurial model with the responsibilities imposed by their social status as care-givers. While a growing body of literature derived from the theorization of the commons addresses the possibility of collectivising social reproductive labour, less attention has been given to how crowning women as the historical subject of social reproductive labour may compromise its collectivization. In order to fill this gap, this study uses the framework of ethics of care and the theory of the commons to trace how cultural commons-based organizations collectivize social reproductive labour in their collectively-held organizational model. In so doing, it follows how the construction of a concrete gender imaginary, based on mythicized ideals of white femininity, contributes to the generation of unbalanced patterns of care-giving and care-receiving in cultural commons-based organizations. In-depth interviewing and participatory observation with three case studies based in Spain allow this study to undertake an exploration towards the potential of care as an organizing principle. The analysis is guided by a dialogue between the analytical model provided by care ethicist Joan Tronto (1993) and the principles for governing the commons as outlined by economist Elinor Ostrom (1990). Empirical results are drawn by tracing five problematic dimensions of care in commoning that lead to the need to put the focus of analysis on the moral element of competence. Although it seems possible to build the conditions from which to sustain productive labour on a commoning basis, the same cannot be said of social reproductive labour. The study concludes by highlighting the need for cultural commons-based organizations to countenance a specific governance model and design principles with which to challenge the conception of care that dominates in the socio-political context where this study is allocated. To do so, the study examines how monitoring categories informed by intersectional lenses could be integrated into cultural commons-based organizations as problematizing mechanisms of self-awareness. Finally, this study offers an innovative contribution to the discussion of commons and care by empirically demonstrating how intersectional theories are needed to problematize ethics of care and the theory of the commons.

Jaar van publicatie:2021

Trefwoorden:Doctoral thesis

Toegankelijkheid:Closed