Global Care Crisis. Mother and child’s-eye view

As trabalhadoras migrantes enviam dinheiro que ganham em casas ricas no Norte para as suas famílias pobres e de classe média no Sul. Enquanto o dinheiro caminha para o Sul, o trabalho do cuidar caminha para o Norte, criando um “défice de cuidados” no Sul.Noentanto, ouvimos com frequência a história emotiva de quem recebe cuidados no Norte e a história económica dos prestadores de cuidados no Sul. Recorrendo a estudos recentes sobre filhos de trabalhadores migrantes na Costa Rica, nas Filipinas e emKerala, na Índia, exploramos o processo através do qual estas crianças são cuidadas e as provas emocionais que têm de superar com muita frequência: gerir a incompreensão da ausência da mãe, a tristeza por essa ausência, a inveja das crianças com mães não migrantes e a ambivalência relativamente aos presentes materiais. Muitos—tanto no Sul como no Norte—ocultam a experiência dessas crianças, consideram-na normal ou discutem-na como matéria privada da moralidade da mãe. Mas o défice do cuidar, entre outros factores, é umprejuízo trágico e oculto que resulta da nossa incapacidade social para encontrar melhores formas de distribuição da riqueza do globo.Female migrant workers send money they earn in affluent homes of the North to their poor and middle class families in the South. As money flows south, caring labor flows north, creating a “care drain” in the South. Yet, we often hear the emotional story of care recipients of the North and the economic story of care givers from the South. Drawing on recent scholarship on the children of migrant workers in Costa Rica, the Philippines and Kerala, India, we explore the many ways in which such children receive care, and the emotional tasks they often face: to manage doubt as to why one’s mother left, sadness at her absence, envy of children with non-migrant mothers, and ambivalence about material gifts. Many — in both the South and North—suppress the children’s experience, normalize it, or discuss it as a private matter of a mother’s morality. But the care drain is, among other things, a tragic hidden injury that results from our social failure to find better ways to fairly distribute the wealth of the globe.Les travailleuses migrantes envoient l’argent qu’elles gagnent dans les belles maisons du nord à leurs familles pauvres et de la classe moyenne du sud. Tandis que l’argent circule vers le sud, les soins maternels circulent vers le nord, créant un «déficit de soins» dans le sud. Cependant, on entend souvent l’histoire émouvante de ceux qui reçoivent les soins dans le nord et l’histoire économique des prestataires de soins dans le sud.Àpartir d’études récentes sur les enfants des travailleuses migrantes au Costa Rica, aux Philippines et à Kerala, en Inde, nous avons étudié le processus par lequel on prend soin de ces enfants et les épreuves émotionnelles qu’ils doivent souvent surmonter: incompréhension de l’absence de la mer, tristesse causée par cette absence, jalousie à l’égard des enfants dont les mères ne sont pas migrantes et ambivalence vis-à-vis des cadeaux matériels. Beaucoup—aussi bien dans le sud que dans le nord—cachent l’expérience de ces enfants, la considèrent normale ou en parlent comme d’une affaire privée de la moralité de la mère. Mais, entre autres facteurs, le déficit de soins est un préjudice tragique et caché qui découle de notre incapacité sociale à trouver de solutions mieux adaptées à la répartition des richesses sur la planète.Las trabajadoras emigrantes envían dinero que ganan en casas ricas en el Norte para sus familias pobres y de clase media en el Sur. Al mismo tiempo que el dinero va para el Sur, el trabajo del cuidado se dirige hacia el Norte, creando así un “déficit del cuidado” en el Sur. Sin embargo, oímos con frecuencia, la historia emotiva de quien recibe el cuidado en el Norte y la historia económica de quien cuida en el Sur. Recurriendo a estudios recientes sobre hijos de trabajadores emigrantes en Costa Rica, en Filipinas y en Kerala, en la India, exploramos el proceso a través del cual estos niños son cuidados y las pruebas emocionales que tienen que superar a menudo: administrar la incomprensión de la ausencia de la madre, la tristeza por esa ausencia, la envidia de las criaturas con madres no emigrantes y la ambivalencia en relación a los regalos materiales. Muchos—tanto en el Sur como en el Norte —ocultan la experiencia de esas criaturas, la consideran normal o la discuten como asunto privado de la moralidad de la madre. Pero el déficit del cuidado, entre otros factores, es un prejuicio trágico y oculto, producto de nuestra incapacidad social para encontrar mejores formas de distribución de la riqueza global

Flexible markets, stable societies?

"Parallel zum Niedergang des Normalarbeitsverhältnisses seit den Siebzigerjahren haben auch die familiären Beziehungen an institutioneller Verbindlichkeit verloren. Das Papier - die leicht überarbeitete Fassung eines Plenarvortrags beim 34. Deutschen Soziologentag im Oktober 2008 - diskutiert mögliche Zusammenhänge zwischen der Flexibilisierung von Arbeitsmärkten und Familienstrukturen und setzt diese in Beziehung zu der gleichzeitig gesunkenen Geburtenrate. Als Ursache der Koevolution von Arbeitsmärkten und Familienbeziehungen kommen sowohl die Attraktivität freier Märkte als auch die von ihnen ausgehenden wirtschaftlichen Zwänge in Frage. Der gegenwärtige Übergang zu einer neuen, auf Hebung der Geburtenrate zielenden Sozialpolitik ist ein Beispiel, wie die Expansion von Marktbeziehungen und die von ihr ausgehende Unsicherheit auch der persönlichen Lebensverhältnisse Forderungen nach staatlicher Intervention nach sich zieht. Die Logik ist dieselbe wie in der Bankenkrise, wo die Befreiung der Kapitalmärkte von traditionellen Beschränkungen und die zunehmende Kommodifizierung des Geldes den Staat gezwungen haben, mit öffentlichen Mitteln stabile Erwartungen und gegenseitiges Vertrauen wiederherzustellen. In beiden Fällen, und wahrscheinlich generell, erzeugt Kapitalismus ein Bedürfnis nach staatlicher Ersatzbeschaffung für soziale Beziehungen, die als Folge ihrer Vermarktung ihre ursprünglichen Funktionen nicht mehr zu erfüllen vermögen." (Autorenreferat)"The dissolution of the standard employment relationship since the 1970s has been paralleled by a destabilization of family relations. The paper, which is a slightly revised version of a plenary lecture at the 2008 Meeting of the German Sociological Association, discusses possible connections between the rise of more flexible labor market and family structures, and explores how they might tie in with the declining birth rate. The co-evolution of labor markets and family relations can be explained by both the attractions and the constraints of free markets. The current shift toward a new social policy aimed at increasing fertility is presented as an example of how expanding market relations and the uncertainty to which they give rise in personal life cause demands for state intervention. The logic seems remarkably similar to that of the current banking crisis, where the liberation of financial markets from traditional constraints and the progressive commodification of money have ultimately issued in irresistible pressures on the state to step in and restore the social commons of stable expectations and mutual confidence. In both cases, and perhaps generally, capitalism seems to imply a need for a public power capable of creating substitutes for social relations invaded by market relations and as a consequence losing their capacity to perform some of their previous functions." (author's abstract

Visions and Revisions: Women and the Power to Change

This final panel, summing up and looking ahead at the end of the First NWSA Convention, borrowed part of its title from the collection of essays on feminism and education Women and the Power to Change [1975]. Contributors to that volume, and other writer-organizers joining them here, were asked to reflect on their work of the early \u2770s and to offer their analyses—and their visions—for the \u2780s

Selling motherhood: Gendered emotional labour, citizenly discounting, and alienation among China’s migrant domestic workers

The feminization of care migration in transnational contexts has received a great deal of attention. Scholars, however, have been slow to investigate a similar trend in intranational contexts. This article expands existing research on global care chains by examining the gendered emotional labor of migrant domestic workers pertaining to China’s intranational care chains. While the former often foregrounds “racial or ethnic discounting,” the latter is characterized by “citizenly discounting” whereby migrant domestic workers are subject to an overarching system of alienation, subordination, and exploitation owning to their second-class rural hùkŏu (household registration) status. Drawing on a participant-observation study of nannies, this article highlights how the intersection of gender and rural-urban citizenship is the key to grasping China’s migrant domestic workers’ experiences of extensive alienation at the nexus of work, family, and wider society. By delving into a particular set of political, economic, and cultural forces in the Chinese context, the article makes a distinctive contribution to a more nuanced and context-sensitive understanding of the interface of gender, emotional labor, and care migration

The multiple lives of affect: a case study of commercial surrogacy

This article intervenes into contemporary scholarship on affect by bringing different affect theories into the same analytical frame. Analysing commercial surrogacy in India through three different conceptualizations of affect found in the work of Michael Hardt, Sara Ahmed and Brian Massumi reveals how affect emerges as a malleable state in the practice of, as a circulatory force in the debates around, and as an ephemeral intensity in the spontaneous resistance to surrogacy. Based on this analysis, I suggest that integrating different theories of affect enables more holistic examinations of corporeal regulation by opening our understanding to the multiple lives of affect that operate on the level of political economy, cultural signification and material intensity simultaneously

Towards a Critical Understanding of Music, Emotion and Self-Identity

The article begins by outlining a dominant conception of these relations in sociologically informed analysis of music, which sees music primarily as a positive resource for active self-making. My argument is that this conception rests on a problematic notion of the self and also on an overly optimistic understanding of music, which implicitly sees music as highly independent of negative social and historical processes. I then attempt to construct a) a more adequately critical conception of personal identity in modern societies; and b) a more balanced appraisal of music-society relations. I suggest two ways in which relations between self, music and society may not always be quite so positive or as healthy as the dominant conception suggests: 1) Music is now bound up with the incorporation of authenticity and creativity into capitalism, and with intensified consumption habits. 2) Emotional self-realisation through music is now linked to status competition. Interviews are analysed

Feminist Reflections on the Scope of Labour Law: Domestic Work, Social Reproduction and Jurisdiction

Drawing on feminist labour law and political economy literature, I argue that it is crucial to interrogate the personal and territorial scope of labour. After discussing the “commodification” of care, global care chains, and body work, I claim that the territorial scope of labour law must be expanded beyond that nation state to include transnational processes. I use the idea of social reproduction both to illustrate and to examine some of the recurring regulatory dilemmas that plague labour markets. I argue that unpaid care and domestic work performed in the household, typically by women, troubles the personal scope of labour law. I use the example of this specific type of personal service relation to illustrate my claim that the jurisdiction of labour law is historical and contingent, rather than conceptual and universal. I conclude by identifying some of the implications of redrawing the territorial and personal scope of labour law in light of feminist understandings of social reproduction