The Care Crisis: What Caused It and How Can We End It?

by Emma Dowling

Book Overview

An examination of the global economic crisis from the perspective of care

We are living through a crisis of care. Looking at austerity measures, cuts and closures, it is easy to conclude that there is a lack of care, that we exist in a society that is careless. Care--the practice of valuing ourself and others--allows us to become capacious, to be free to act on the world and to be well. Care allows us to expend our energies on each other, not giving it up to be monetised and privatised.

In this groundbreaking book, Dowling argues that this crisis is an issue not of measure, but of practice. In some senses there is an excess of care, exemplified by the increase in worry, anxiety and compulsions. In others, we quite rightly lament the absence of what we consider to be good care or real care: caring in ways that do not diminish but enhance our capacities to act.

Care weaves together scenes from everyday life to trace the outlines of this crisis of care, one that is not so much initiated as exacerbated by the global financial crisis. She poses the question, can care be a strategy of resistance, a way to build a bulwark of power against the vicissitudes of our everyday toils? How might that be different from the individualising, anxiety-producing 'self-care' we are so often urged to do? And if we still care, what might we do?

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1786630346
• ISBN13: 9781786630346
• Release Date: January 2021
• Publisher: Verso
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.86 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.7" x 8.3"