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Contradictions of capital and care

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... Thus, social reproduc on is an indispensable background condi on for it and its ins tu onal separa on is a central artefact of capitalism. Moreover, the dis nc ons made are deeply marked by gender dis nc ons (Fraser, 2016). '[T]he earth's capacity to support life and renew itself cons tutes another necessary background condi on for commodity produc on and capital accumula on' (Fraser, 2022: 11). ...
... Moreover, Fraser (2016Fraser ( , 2017 points out that the struggle against exploita on and expropria on also goes hand in hand with a struggle for 'emancipa on' that cannot be reduced to it. On the one hand, ins tu onal boundaries encourage exclusion, so that we face forms of marginalisa on again and again. ...
... Power (2004) therefore proposes to speak of 'social provisioning' -a term used now by many feminist authors (e.g. Jo, 2011;Fraser, 2016), but also by authors of the commons (Bollier & Helfrich, 2019), and scien sts of economic transforma on (e.g. Raworth, 2017;Fanning, 2020). ...
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... Ses femmes ne sont pas de grandes consommatrices de biens reproductifs (qu'il s'agisse d'une machine à laver ou du travail d'une aidesoignante) et de protection sociale : leur exploitation intense les empêche d'externaliser les coûts clés de reproduction du marché, et l'état post ajustement structurel ne comble pas le vide (Ossome, 2015). Au contraire, dans le Sud, le conflit inhérent entre production et reproduction est exacerbé (Fraser, 2016 ;Naidu et Ossome, 2016) et cet article contribue à comprendre comment ce conflit est géré (ou non résolu) au Sénégal. ...
... ). Cela met en évidence les multiples sources de disciplinement auxquelles sont confrontées les femmes -et surtout les exigences contradictoires de la reproduction sociale et de la production (Fraser, 2016) -car la remise en question de l'une pourrait impliquer une plus grande dépendance à l'égard de l'autre. ...
... Le ménage élargi africain 'légendaire' est le régime de reproduction qui fournit une main-d'oeuvre bon marché pour la production alimentaire d'exportation en assumant les coûts de ce bon marché. Ce coût est supporté en définitive par des armées invisibles et changeantes de femmes qui se démènent pour gérer la contradiction inhérente entre production et reproduction sociale (Fraser, 2016). Cette contradiction est d'autant plus intense qu'elle trouve ses racines dans les relations Nord-Sud: la chaîne d'approvisionnement est le mécanisme racial qui transfère le coût social des bas salaires au Sud, où les ménages paysans polygynes et étendus, ainsi que les classes de travail genrées qui y sont associées, sont le résultat des relations mondiales de production, plutôt que de leur absence. ...
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Cet article étudie la création d’une main d’oeuvre bon marché au bas des chaînes de valeur mondiales. Adoptant une analyse sociale, l’article entend analyser le régime de travail et la reproduction sociale, examinant le processus de travail dans l'horticulture d'exportation au Sénégal en relation avec les ménages ruraux. S'appuyant sur des données qualitatives primaires, l’article analyse les relations de pouvoir au sein des lieux de travail et des ménages, étudiant les relations structurelles entre eux à travers le disciplinement et l'exploitation des femmes. L’article soutient que le contrôle de la main d’oeuvre au-delà du lieu de travail est fondamental au maintien de l’offre de main d’oeuvre disciplinée et bon marché, démontrant comment le patriarcat et la religion réglementent un continuum de relations de classe entre les ménages, les champs de culture et les centres d’emballage. L’article établit que le conflit inhérent entre production et reproduction s’intensifie au bas de la chaîne d’approvisionnement et alimente la fragmentation des femmes dans différentes 'classes de travail'. Bien que les femmes influencent, réagissent et défient certaines formes de subordination, leur résistance aux pressions combinées du disciplinement et de l’exploitation est moins manifeste.
... The current tensions are not accidental but have deep systemic roots in our socio-political and economic structure. Every kind of capitalist society harbours a contradiction: on the one hand, social reproduction is a condition of possibility for sustained capital accumulation; on the other hand, the orientation of capitalism towards unlimited accumulation tends to destabilise the processes of social reproduction it relies on (Fraser, 2016). This crisis tendency undermines the same processes of the social reproduction of natural and human life. ...
... The allocation from the periphery to the centre, from the North to the South, contributes to sustaining the economic growth of post-industrialized countries (Hondagneu-Sotelo, 2007). For peripheral countries, this phenomenon implies the outsourcing and/or commodification of domestic and care tasks that women used to perform for free, or that cannot be performed anymore due to the current precariousness of wages in the destination countries (Fraser, 2016;Pérez Orozco, 2009). In countries at the centre, women have gained significant access to the market, and the neoliberalisation of states has transferred the responsibility of reproductive and care work to individuals and the private market. ...
Article
This paper examines migrant women’s labour and the location of poor and racialised working women in the context of the contemporary care crisis. In the first part, I briefly reconstruct, the feminist critiques of the Marxist capitalist social (re)production theory and, the Decolonial and Postcolonial feminist criticisms of the Marxist universal model of the capitalist mode of (re)production and its conceptualisation of marginalised and excluded subjects. This analysis sets the ground for understanding the debts and innovations of Marx’s political economy operated by the contemporary theory of care. In the second part, I focus on the embodied and affective experiences of poor, black, brown, and indigenous women to identify concrete mechanisms and relations of exploitation, oppression, and violence produced in the migration process to maintain global care chains. I base my analysis on a review of case studies of Mexican, Indian, and Filipina migrant women. Finally, I highlight the inherent ambivalences of global care chains as a process of both neo-colonial feminisation of migration and reproduction of neoliberal capitalism and as a shared context of struggle and resistance grounded in embodied and affective experiences. Keywords: feminisation of migration, reproductive labour, global care chains, racialized working women
... This development parallels discussions on PE-led healthcare restructuring in the US (Henry & Loomis, 2023;Olson, 2022) and corresponds with feminist political economy approaches on the deepening crisis of social reproduction under financialised capitalism (Fraser, 2016). Post-2008 expansive monetary policies have fuelled alternative investments like PE and the creation of new asset classes in de-risked, public-spending-backed sectors (Gabor, 2021). ...
... Rather than resolving the internal contradiction of capital and care, under financialised capitalism care fixes imply social reproduction 'to both reproduce life and provide sources of profit for capital' (Rosenman et al., 2024, p. 191). Within this dialectic, where socially reproductive and care labour are devalued yet valorised by capital, social reproduction becomes a source of capital accumulation, undermining the social fabric of the capitalist system (Fraser, 2016). ...
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This paper explores why the financialisation of physician practices by private equity (PE) and the resulting value extraction from Germany’s solidarity-based healthcare system go largely unexamined in healthcare studies and regulation, despite contestation by medical associations. It contributes to feminist political-economic critiques of finance’s impact on social reproduction, employing the perspectives of economisation and dissociation from heterodox economic geography. This framework reveals how a solidarity-based health economy has historically aligned with neoclassical logics and how value extraction falls from view in this framing. Drawing on analyses of corporate spatial structures of PE-led healthcare chains, as well as narrative patterns from expert interviews and a text corpus on the disputed financialised restructuring of ambulatory healthcare, the paper identifies two dissociations that obscure value extraction and hinder effective regulatory oversight. First, the discursive framing of the ambulatory health economy through a neoclassical (health) economics lens makes value extraction seem implausible or invisible. Second, the opaque spatial ownership structures of PE-led healthcare chains prevent independent, evidence-based monitoring of these financialised healthcare providers. Therefore, the paper advocates for incorporating heterodox perspectives in health policy advising to rethink and foster definancialised investment and ownership models for a sustainable and solidarity-based future health economy.
... La desigualdad es causa y efecto del capitalismo, el lubricante que engrasa una maquinaria inicua de multiplicar ganancias a través de la desposesión. Esta es una idea central en la teoría social de David Harvey, con la que coincide, desde una óptica feminista, Nancy Fraser al denunciar que "el capitalismo depende de una naturaleza" siempre disponible "como fuente de 'insumos productivos' y como 'sumidero' de los residuos de la producción" 15 . No obstante, por muy ecocidas que resulten las externalidades negativas sobre las que se asienta el sistema, como deslizaba Fredric Jameson al discutir el concepto de 'espacio basura' de Koolhaas, parece "más fácil imaginar el fin del mundo que imaginar el fin del capitalismo" 16 . ...
... Inequality is both cause and effect of capitalism, the lubricant that greases an iniquitous machine of multiplying profits through dispossession. This is a central idea in David Harvey's social theory, with which Nancy Fraser agrees, from a feminist perspective, when she denounces that capitalism depends on the "availability of nature as a source of 'productive inputs' and a 'sink' for production's waste" 15 . Yet, however ecocidal the negative externalities on which the system is based may be, as Fredric Jameson's commented when discussing Koolhaas's notion of 'junkspace', it seems "easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism" 16 . ...
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Con el trasfondo de una crisis ambiental irresoluble y el cuestionamiento del actual modelo industrial, este artículo revisa algunas implicaciones arquitectónicas de la gestión de residuos. Su habitual ocultación suscita preguntas sobre los lugares donde se reubica y el modo en que se trata industrialmente la materia sólida que, tras ser extraída, transformada y reterritorializada en las máquinas que sostienen la civilización urbana, es digerida en las ciudades. La investigación se centra, primero, en las consecuencias del exceso de una producción que ha crecido obsesiva y adictivamente a lo largo de más de dos siglos de acelerado desarrollo tecnológico. A continuación, vinculados al marco económico y normativo español de las últimas décadas, se examinan ejemplos de complejos y paisajes (pos)industriales destinados a manejar, reinsertar y desplazar los desechos de la propia industria. Los casos de estudio escogidos permiten entrelazar debates contemporáneos y retos de futuro, tanto en conversación con otras disciplinas como en relación con controversias sociales, agendas políticas y conflictos ecológicos que atañen a unas factorías de la entropía a menudo desatendidas por la arquitectura. El propósito es dilucidar cómo, desde un mejor entendimiento de la realidad material que consideramos basura, podemos reevaluar conceptos asentados sobre los residuos y reenfocar así nuestras prácticas cotidianas y experiencias de diseño.
... Desde este eje de demandas, la teoría social de los cuidados plantea la relevancia de la responsabilidad compartida socialmente en el cuidado, considerando que esta no es una tarea exclusiva de las mujeres, pues requiere ser redistribuida entre las personas más allá de sus identidades de género; es decir, considera la participación de los hombres. Para Fraser (2016), los cuidados que se brindan en las familias implican tanto un trabajo afectivo como material, que generalmente se realiza sin remuneración y es indispensable para la reproducción social de la vida. ...
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Convertirse en padre o madre constituye un evento crucial en la vida de las personas. En las últimas décadas, el impacto de la parentalidad en el bienestar de padres y madres ha comenzado a ser objeto de estudio, atendiendo a los diversos desafíos que enfrentan en el ejercicio del rol parental en el contexto actual. Este trabajo tiene como objetivo analizar los desafíos que emergen para la intervención e investigación en el trabajo con familias desde una perspectiva interdisciplinaria, enfocándose en el impacto de la parentalidad en el bienestar de ambos progenitores y los cambios en las relaciones de género al interior de las familias. Para ello, se llevó a cabo una revisión narrativa, realizando una exhaustiva revisión de la literatura existente relacionada con el tema, estableciendo una síntesis de los principales hallazgos que dan cuenta del estado del arte. En cuanto a los resultados, se observan cambios en las familias, especialmente en los arreglos vinculados a la crianza y cuidado de los/as hijos/as. Así, se identifica el impacto que tiene la parentalidad en el bienestar de padres y madres, estableciéndose que este está moldeado por la interacción de distintos factores, tales como individuales, familiares y estructurales. Con los resultados de este trabajo, se busca contribuir al desarrollo de estrategias efectivas para la intervención con familias, así como al avance del conocimiento académico sobre parentalidad en contextos contemporáneos, atendiendo a los desafíos que enfrentan padres y madres en la tarea de crianza en el escenario actual.
... Responsibility for providing care has shifted almost completely away from formal services to families (Fraser 2016). In the UK, 6.5 million people-10.4 ...
Article
This article explores the poorly understood and under-researched topic of carer harm, where family carers experience harm from the person they are caring for. Nine narrative interviews were conducted with family carers of people living with dementia and autism, and two with professionals. Three focus groups were convened with professionals, including social workers, nurses, and advocacy organizations, with four to five participants in each (n = 14). Four key themes emerged: ‘Understanding Carer Harm’, ‘Stigma and Guilt’, ‘Types of Harm Experienced’, and ‘Expectations, Responses and Systems that Harm’. Conflicts existed for many professionals when balancing the needs, safety, and protection of all family members. We conclude that a range of intersecting enforceable legal rights would help to ensure that carers are better protected. These rights would include the right to an assessment of need for both the carer and the child or adult with care and support needs, as well as a statutory entitlement to services that the assessment identifies for both parties. Proactive support from a social worker could go some way to addressing the challenges, putting in place a range of supports that prevent harm, reduce risk, and meet the needs of all family members.
... While the total amount of work allocated to each partner may be the same in the two models, it is important to distinguish between a gendered and an egalitarian division of labor because of the qualitative difference between the two types of work. Since housework is unpaid and typically undervalued compared to paid work (Fraser, 2016), a gendered division of labor reduces women's (especially mothers') economic autonomy and human capital growth (Sullivan, 2019). ...
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The transition to parenthood is a pivotal life course event that impacts well-being, relationship quality and the distribution of housework and paid work. In Germany, during the transition to first-time parenthood, women often reduce their involvement in paid work and take on a larger share of housework, leading to a more gendered division of labor. This shift could influence perceptions of fairness in the division of labor inducing both men and women to perceive the division as being more fair to themselves or more fair to their partner. Using data from the German Panel Analysis of Intimate Relationships and Family Dynamics (pairfam) and fixed effects models, we examine how women’s and men’s perception of fairness of the division of labor varies around first childbirth conceptualizing different phases spanning from 5 years before until 5 years after the first childbirth. Relative to baseline, mothers (-to-be) reported a fairer division of labor (less under-benefitting) from around conception to right after childbirth. Yet, already from 6 months after childbirth mothers’ perception of fairness becomes less fair to them again and the perception of under-benefitting continues as the child ages. For fathers-to-be, perceptions of fairness did not vary substantially around childbirth. We further found that neither the change in the division of housework, nor in the division of paid work, explained changes in fairness perceptions during the transition to parenthood.
... Die Wohnungswirtschaft fragt zwar: Wie werden wir wohnen?, vernachlässigt aber das (stille) Wissen der Wohnenden. Die Reproduktion gängiger Wohnungstypen steht dabei im Widerspruch zur gesellschaftlichen Ausdifferenzierung und den veränderten Lebensbedingungen hinsichtlich Produktion und Reproduktion (Häußermann /Siebel 2000;Madden 2020;Power/Mee 2019;Fraser 2016). Die Wohnungsfrage ist schon immer eine soziale Frage, die weniger ein Problem von Knappheit, sondern von Verteilung, sozialer Lage und Herkunft ist (Kronauer 2022: 189). ...
... This study employed a mixed-methods strategy that integrated secondary data from nationwide databases with primary information gathered through field surveys. The study's theoretical underpinning draws from feminist economics and care economy concepts, which argue that unpaid caregiving activities, performed mainly by women, are crucial for societal reproduction, but remain economically underappreciated and overlooked (Esquivel, 2011;Fraser, 2016;Gómez et al., 2020). ...
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This study explores the feminization of poverty and the dynamics of the care economy in rural areas, focusing on the municipality of Génova, Quindío, Colombia. The novelty of this study lies in its analysis of the compounded effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on women’s economic participation and care responsibilities in a rural context, offering insights relevant to Latin America. This study addresses the critical problem of how increased caregiving responsibilities and labor informality during the pandemic have disproportionately impacted economically active women, exacerbating gender inequalities. The objective is to analyze the relationship between the care economy and feminization of poverty, providing policy recommendations for post-pandemic recovery in rural settings. The methodology consisted of a two-stage approach. In the first stage, a probabilistic stratified sampling design was applied using data from the Colombian National Population and Housing Census and the Génova, Quindío, and Colombia Municipal Panel. In the second stage, fieldwork was conducted with a sample of 347 women using the RedCap application for data collection. The results indicate a significant increase in unpaid domestic and caregiving work during the pandemic, particularly for the elderly, disabled, and children. Additionally, labor informality increased, further limiting economic opportunities for women. The key conclusion is that public policies aimed at reducing gender disparities in rural labor markets must prioritize caregiving support and formal employment opportunities for women. These findings suggest that addressing the care economy is crucial for closing gender gaps and fostering equitable economic recovery in rural Latin American areas.
... O trabalho doméstico remunerado se caracteriza como um trabalho de cuidado, que é essencial para garantir a sustentabilidade da vida humana e o funcionamento da economia capitalista. Porém, como destaca a teoria da reprodução social, a desvalorização e invisibilidade do trabalho reprodutivo dentro das estruturas capitalistas perpetua as condições de exploração em termos de gênero, raça e classe (Fraser, 2016;Bhattacharya, 2017). ...
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O presente artigo examina o processo de envelhecimento das trabalhadoras domésticas no Brasil, com ênfase nos impactos da reforma previdenciária de 2019 sobre sua segurança financeira futura. As trabalhadoras domésticas representam o terceiro grupo de atividade mais prevalente (13%) entre as mulheres ocupadas no país, sendo composto majoritariamente por mulheres negras de baixa escolaridade. Embora a “Lei das Domésticas” de 2015 tenha lhes trazido avanços de direitos trabalhistas, a informalidade continua predominante entre essas trabalhadoras e tem aumentado nos últimos anos. Utilizando indicadores demográficos e dados de 2015, 2019 e 2023 da Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios Contínua (PNADC), o estudo avalia o processo de envelhecimento dessa categoria e realiza simulações de aposentadorias para médias salariais regionais, comparando os cenários antes e após a reforma previdenciária. Os resultados mostram que as trabalhadoras domésticas, formais e informais, estão envelhecendo mais rapidamente do que as mulheres ocupadas no país. A reforma previdenciária de 2019 introduziu novos desafios, particularmente no que diz respeito ao acesso e ao valor dos benefícios de aposentadoria. O aumento da idade mínima e do tempo de contribuição resultou em um cenário em que muitas trabalhadoras não conseguirão se aposentar ou receberão apenas o benefício mínimo. Portanto, os resultados indicam a necessidade urgente de políticas públicas que assegurem condições dignas de aposentadoria e proteção social para essas profissionais, reconhecendo seu papel fundamental na economia dos cuidados e na reprodução social.
... Contrary to appearances, many widespread beliefs that seem to justify the status quo may turn out to be dead-no longer actively promoted by dominant actors. For instance, and exceedingly crudely, the ideal of the patriarchal nuclear family may endure as a cultural norm long after the male breadwinner model has ceased to be economically viable for most households (Fraser 2016). Now that is not to say that patriarchal power is not real or important. ...
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This paper examines how radical realism, a form of ideology critique grounded in epistemic rather than moral normativity, can illuminate the relationship between ideology and political power. The paper argues that radical realism can have both an evaluative and a diagnostic function. Drawing on reliabilist epistemology, the evaluative function shows how beliefs shaped by power differentials are often epistemically unwarranted, e.g. due to the influence of motivated reasoning and the suppression of critical scrutiny. The paper clarifies those mechanisms in order to address some recent critiques of radical realism. The paper then builds on those clarifications to explore the how tracing the genealogy of legitimation stories can diagnose the distribution of power in society, even if ideology does not play a direct stabilising role. This diagnostic function creates a third position in the debate on ideology between culturalists and classical Marxists, and it can help reconciling aspects of structural and relational theories of power.
... Mesmo nesse esquema clássico de reprodução social baseada na troca de mercadorias, a teoria feminista descreve que uma série de atividades reprodutivas são mantidas fora das relações assalariadas (Federici, 2021;Battacharya, 2017 (Katz, 2008;Meehan e Strauss, 2015;Fraser, 2016). ...
... While this expanded aperture of analyses was a fruitful way for scholars to turn the discussion of social reproduction on the pressing problem of wage-labour (or its absence) and link it to the 'crisis' of household labour and domestic care (Bhattacharya 2017;Fraser 2016;Leonard and Fraser 2016), this discourse remained inadequate as it neglected to establish a connexion between social reproduction and other domains of social life and relations that are not customarily linked with capitalist production and accumulation but are nonetheless subsumed in it. Social reproduction theorists have thus proposed to go beyond the 'visible facts' of the worker and labour as a 'finished entity' that is traversing between the productive and reproductive spheres (and for the market), and instead privilege 'the complex network of social processes and human relations that produces the conditions of existence for that entity' (Bhattacharya 2017, 8). ...
... Always with this idea in mind, which partially corresponds to reality, that women are responsible for the household and childcare." (GSM 2017) This quote, which attempts to grasp racist and sexist representations underlying the activation approach of labor administrations also points to the "contradictions of capital and care" that are outsourced to women (Fraser 2016). Newly arrived parents in a German reproductive economy characterized by a lack of infrastructures and investments find it particularly hard to find childcare, which would allow them to carry out allegedly more productive and paid labor. ...
Article
The article retraces the institutional, legal, and societal developments that have accompanied the increasing interlocking of asylum and workfare policies in Germany since the 'summer of migration' in 2015. By analyzing the infrastructures, narratives, but also conflicts and contingencies that underlie politics for labor market activation as they are experienced by refugees in Berlin and Brandenburg, ongoing social and institutional struggles around them are illustrated. The article argues that differential and contingent access to workfare measures corresponds to attempts to selectively and logistically activate potential workers for precarious segments and sectors. Infrastructures involved in such differential and confining activation are examined as to the racializing and coercive effects that they have on labor market participation through their unequal distribution of resources and precarities. It is argued that through their logistified approach, current conjunctures of racial capitalism contribute to forging more and more precarious, stratified, and fragmented social rights and labor relations. In spite of these contingent and divisive tendencies in racial capitalism, manifold struggles against racism and in favor of equal labor market participation continue to be fought.
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This article critically examines the concept of resource scarcity within the context of capitalist accumulation and colonial legacies. Employing an ecofeminist approach, it challenges dominant narratives of scarcity that obscure systemic processes of resource deprivation in the global South and care economies. The analysis reveals how the rhetoric of scarcity serves capitalist interests and perpetuates colonial exploitation, leading to unequal resource allocation between productive and reproductive economies, and between the global North and South. Drawing on ecofeminist theory, enriched by decolonial and Marxist critiques, this article argues that resource scarcity is not merely relative within planetary boundaries, but fundamentally a consequence of capitalist modes of production and colonial exploitation of women, racialised populations, and the more-than-human world. Scarcity is artificially manufactured through processes of overaccumulation, overdevelopment, and corporate violence. The article advocates for an ecofeminist decolonial degrowth political economy as a form of climate reparation. This approach explicitly aims to expand the care economy, challenging the growth paradigm and redistributing resources between production and reproduction, and between North and South. It envisions the development of plural, interdependent economies that resist capitalist domination and pave the way for post-capitalist modes of living that prioritise human flourishing and ecological sustainability.
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There is broad recognition today that there is a link between the crisis of social reproduction and the housing problem. But their precise relationship is not always clear. This paper is an attempt to clarify their connection. Housing, this paper argues, is not merely the location or container of the crisis of social reproduction. Rather, there are elements of the contemporary housing system which intensify and shape the crisis of social reproduction. Drawing on feminist political economy and critical housing research, this paper identifies four major pathways by which the housing system exacerbates the crisis of social reproduction: depletion, disruption, redomestication, and recommodification. It also considers housing as a site for repoliticising social reproduction. Ultimately, the paper argues that a complete account of the housing question cannot ignore social reproduction as a political‐economic process.
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It is now 40 years since the publication of Claus Offe's classical paper, Some Contradictions of the Modern Welfare State. Much change has occurred to the form and content of welfare states over the intervening years, yet in addition to change, continuities are very much evident, and it is this constellation of developments – alongside anniversarial convenience – which has motivated a re-examination of Offe's seminal work on the contradictions of welfare states. This anniversary article re-introduces and provides a critique of the original paper before moving on to a historical comparison of the major political economic and societal differences which sets the scene for a concluding review of the major contradictions within welfare states in contemporary times. The paper argues that the core historical contradiction identified by Offe – that between the accumulation requirements of capital and the legitimation requirements of political elites to satiate the welfare needs of populations – remains at the core of contemporary contradictions.
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This article advances a new theoretical understanding of the global political economy of austerity through an examination of austerity policies in Norway, a country with soaring fiscal surpluses. Critical scholarship has analyzed austerity as an incoherent economic idea – a product of unreasonable public accounting, or simply ideological nonsense. No national context seems to confirm such a view more than Norway, where wage growth has been curbed and welfare spending restrained in a context of unprecedented public prosperity. Yet, this article argues that there is a rational core to Norwegian ‘austerity without deficits’, if seen from the vantage point of capital in globally integrated neoliberal capitalism. Examining the development of Norwegian economic policies since the 1970s, we demonstrate how the Norwegian state has imposed austerity measures in order to bolster national capital’s global competitiveness. Disciplining labor and public budgets is, we argue, the cost of doing business in today’s world economy. We call this uneven and combined austerity: combining national economies in a global structure of interlocking dependence, neoliberal austerity imposes limits to popular demands for welfare and better material conditions of living, even in countries where public money abounds.
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Entre les històries de vida que recorren les pàgines d’aquesta investigació que teniu a les mans, es condensen les ambivalències que habiten les dones i les identitats dissidents de Cali i Barcelona per desenvolupar la nostra vida en un món que va en contra nostre. Camila Esguerra, Ash Loaiza i Uzuri Aboitiz, en cadascun dels seus casos analitzats, ens parlen dels malabars econòmics, socials i assistencials que succeeixen en la intimitat de les nostres llars en aquesta dècada dels anys vint. Realitats que, lluny de romantitzar-se, formen part del dia a dia d’una classe treballadora global cada vegada més feminitzada, cada vegada més racialitzada i cada vegada més empobrida. El deute no és neutral —mai no ha pretès ser-ho!— i la seva creixent centralitat en les nostres vides suposa un enfortiment de les pràctiques rendistes, d’espoli i desposseïment, i una reducció de la nostra autonomia, drets i llibertats. Coordinado por Cooperacció. Financiamiento de l’Agència Catalana de Cooperació al Desenvolupament
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Entre las historias de vida que recorren las páginas de esta investigación que tienes en tus manos, se condensan las ambivalencias que habitamos mujeres e identidades disidentes de Cali y Barcelona para desarrollar nuestras vidas en un mundo que nos va en contra. Camila Esguerra, Ash Loaiza y Uzuri Aboitiz, en cada uno de sus estudios de caso, nos hablan de los malabarismos econónomicos, sociales y de cuidados que suceden en la intimidad de nuestros hogares en esta década de los 20. Realidades que, lejos de ser romantizadas, forman parte del día a día de una clase trabajadora global cada vez más feminizada, cada vez más racializada y cada vez más empobrecida. Y es que la deuda no es neutral —¡nunca pretendió serlo!—, y su centralidad cada vez mayor en nuestras vidas supone un fortalecimiento de prácticas rentistas, de espolio y de desposesión,y una reducción de nuestra autonomía, derechos y libertades. Libro coordinado por Cooperaccio con fondos de la Agencia Catalana de de Cooperacció al Desenvolupament.
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As China's urbanisation approaches saturation, the dynamics of migration have shifted from rural out‐migration to urban out‐migration. This shift has rendered children of migrants remaining in urban China understudied. By comparing children of migrants and children of non‐migrants in an urban border setting—Hunchun City, Northeast China, this study examines the association between parental migration and children's life satisfaction through various potential mediating indicators within two dimensions: parents' (a) material support and (b) emotional support. This study employs a mixed‐methods approach, conducting an original data set with children ( N = 639) and in‐depth interviews with children, parents, grandparents and schoolteachers ( N = 41). The findings reveal that across different types of parental migration (father‐only, mother‐only, both‐parent migration), children with both parents migrating have significantly lower life satisfaction than children of non‐migrants, while parents' emotional support mediates significantly more than the material support. It further suggests that children with both parents migrating develop a defensive stance toward their needs as a response to their parents' absence. Specifically, they exhibit resistance to seeking parental assistance when needed, raising critical questions regarding children's resilience and highlighting the complex interplay between family dynamics and children's subjective well‐being in the context of parental migration.
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ENG Against the backdrop of a crisis in ecological and social (re)production, challenging liberal and universalist feminism, as well as its tendency to "catch up" with masculine ideals, is becoming increasingly urgent. Does the construction of more just and sustainable societies require reconnecting with certain dispositions, practices, or norms traditionally associated with the feminine? The recent success of care ethics, ecofeminism, and the "genital" turn in feminism renews a thorny dilemma that feminisms have long faced: the rejection of values traditionally associated with the "feminine" perpetuates forms of misogyny and the superiority of the so-called "masculine" ethos; yet, their valorization risks reinforcing binary and patriarchal gender categories, reassigning women and gender minorities to roles from which they seek to emancipate themselves. This article aims to clarify the conditions for the possibility of feminist femininities. We propose some avenues for negotiating these paradoxes and fostering fruitful alliances between critiques and emancipatory reappropriations of femininity. FR Sur le fond d’une crise de la (re)production écologique et sociale, les remises en question du féminisme libéral et universaliste, ainsi que de sa tendance au "rattrapage" d'idéaux masculins, se font de plus en plus pressantes. La construction de sociétés plus justes et durables nécessiterait-elle de renouer avec certaines dispositions, pratiques ou normes traditionnellement associées au féminin ? Le succès récent des éthiques du care, de l'écoféminisme ou encore du tournant "génital" du féminisme renouvelle ainsi un dilemme épineux auquel les féminismes sont confrontés depuis longtemps : le rejet des valeurs traditionnellement associées au "féminin" reconduit des formes de misogynie et la supériorité de l’éthos dit "masculin" ; mais leur valorisation risque de renforcer les catégories binaires et patriarcales du genre, réassignant les femmes et les minorités de genre à des rôles dont elles cherchent à s’émanciper. Cet article se propose de préciser les conditions de possibilité des féminités féministes. Nous avançons quelques pistes pour négocier ces paradoxes et cultiver des alliances fécondes entre critiques et réappropriations émancipatrices de la féminité.
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This article examines the crucial role of political willingness and brokerage in the implementation of Bogotá's new feminist care policy, the ‘System of Care', which aims to address gender and class inequalities and alleviate care burdens on women. Through a combination of ethnographic data and stakeholder interviews, we analyze the intricate political and social processes that underpin the policy's effectiveness. Drawing on academic literature about care work, policy implementation in weak states, and brokerage, we provide a comprehensive understanding of the policy's development and operation, from the inception of the System of Care to its day-to-day functionality within the local Care Blocks. Our findings underscore the significance of political willingness and brokerage at the macro level, along with the importance of debureaucratization and trust-building at the micro level, as key factors contributing to the policy’s success. Yet, the policy innovation also faces several challenges, primarily political uncertainties and the risk of burnout among local Care Block coordinators.
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This article argues that changes in the organization of social reproduction, defined to include the activities, attitudes, behaviors, emotions, responsibilities, and relationships involved in maintaining daily life, can explain historical differences in women's political self-organization. Examining the Progressive period, the 1930s, and the 1960s and 1970s, the authors suggest that the conditions of social reproduction provide the organizational resources for and legitimation of women's collective action.