How might care economies look, mapped?

How might care economies look, mapped? I define care economies as arrangements of paid and unpaid labor that are necessary to sustain life and human dignity. Through this writing, I hope to synthesize spatially-implicated concepts from three anthropologists across different cultures and societies- from global care chains emanating from the Philippines, to algorithmic care development in Japan, to zones of abandonment in Brazil. Here, I'm seeking to apply spatial thinking to three different anthropological studies on care- chosen not only for their place-based studies of very different socio-cultural-economic contexts, but because each author contributes ideas that have novel implications for arrangements of space, economy, and international relations. Looking through a critical geography lens, it appears as if economies of care are growing far beyond the traditional confines of the nuclear family home. At the same time, the actual world of care work seems to grow smaller, more fragmented, and less relational.

Scholar Rhacel Parreñas’ work on migrant domestic workers illustrates the growth of the global care economy, tracing the global care chain, or the “international division of reproductive labor” between Filipina workers, the families that employ them in wealthier countries, and the care work left behind in the Philippines. A central feature of this arrangement is that the employers are not government or private agencies, but rather individual families and often individual women. This means that as migrant women grow the care economy, they perform their work in isolation, in contrast to other common forms of low-wage labor often taken up by migrants, such as construction, manufacturing, or agricultural work. Parreñas illustrates how the social worlds of migrant women contract, and how their daily work splinters into very specific, simple, discrete tasks. Parreñas explains that because of this phenomenon, “ international division of reproductive labor” is a more suitable concept to apply to her analysis than “the global care chain”, asserting that “much of the work done by migrant women is actually nonrelational and would therefore not fit the traditional definition of ‘care work’” (Parreñas, p. 47). Parreñas parses out the types of work that can emerge in the care economy - menial and nonmenial, nurturant and nonnurturant, spiritual, etc., explaining that a hierarchy of such tasks emerges, with women of color most often performing the most menial tasks. Personally, I’ve often observed this phenomenon in my work as a nanny. Interactions between caregivers, even caregivers working for the same family, are limited. Parreñas’ work highlights how the growth of the global care economy and so-called care chains actually produce segmentation and hierarchy within care work.

In Japan, scholar James Wright details the algorithmic breakdown of care through his interviews with engineers on designing care robots. The engineers explain the importance of “parameterization” of human activities, explaining,  “the success of the process–is when you can split responsibilities, not mix them,”  essentially stating that in order to design a good care robot, the engineer must isolate complex functions into singular, simple units. (Wright, p. 55). One robot, for example, performs the function of lifting elderly patients, while another, fluffier robot seeks to provide emotional and physical intimacy. This again demonstrates that the development of new care economies (in this case, a global market for care robots estimated to reach $11 billion in 2025 (Wright, p. 9)) leads to more segmented, discrete, and nonrelational practices of care.

Japanese eldercare robot "Robear" being tested (Wright, 2023)

In Brazil, medical anthropologist João Biehl focuses mostly on the absence of care within what he terms “zones of abandonment” (Biehl, p. 243). His discussion of care and abandonment is also grounded in a critical analysis of neoliberalization in Brazil, the devolution of care from the state to the market and the family, and the substitution of pharmaceutical treatment for care. Biehl condemns this phenomenon, stating “the consequence of conceiving of care as technological intervention rather than relational practice – the abandonment and death of people in great need – is a kind of evil.” (Biehl, p.251)

In contrast to Parreñas’ and Wright’s studies on care workers, Biehl centers his work on the experiences of one care patient, Catarina. He highlights that the geriatric house that Catarina occupies is run by volunteer caregivers whose primary task is to administer drugs. In interviews with staff at another psychiatric center, care workers suggest that once medication has become the primary mechanism of care, social death becomes inevitable. Not only is this social death inevitable, but Biehl further asserts that this social death is irreversible (p.261). In other words, the development of the care economy in neoliberal society comes at great cost- social death.

Applying a critical geography lens, it seems that as care economies become networked into neoliberal regimes and care arrangements reach far beyond the home and nuclear family, day-to-day experiences and practices of care workers actually grow more fragmented, discrete, and non-relational. When mapped, care economies might resemble a spreading, ever-disintegrating particle map, rather than a network map, choropleth map, or heat map. 

Sources

Biehl, J. (2012). Care and disregard. A companion to moral anthropology, 242-263.

Parreñas, R. (2015). Servants of globalization: Migration and domestic work. Stanford University Press.

Wright, J. (2023). Robots won't save Japan: An ethnography of eldercare automation. Cornell University Press.