The first regional congress on care in Uruguay

Article in the Perspectives series by Jana Vasil'eva

Alliances of feminist networks are currently successfully placing people's right to care on the public agenda in some countries in the Latin American region. This is based on the conviction that care is a fundamental building block of social justice and human development. Constituting care as a fundamental human right is an indispensable step to counteract the deep inequalities that currently bind large parts of Latin America in a spiral of collective exhaustion, frustration and violence. These inequalities create space for reactionary and repressive political forces, but also lead to organising processes and demands from care workers, civil society organisations, feminist collectives, networks and researchers.

[caption id="attachment_3865" align="alignleft" width="900"] Conference Miradas latinoamericanas al cuidado
Photo: Claudio Princivalle (CC BY-SA 2.0)[/caption] From 5 to 7 November 2018, the first regional conference on the topic of care was held in Montevideo under the title "Miradas Latinoamericanas al Cuidado". 300 researchers, care workers and activists from many countries made it clear that Latin America unites a diverse mosaic of perspectives, knowledge and starting points for fundamental changes in society as a whole through more socially just self-care and care structures. The location of the conference was no coincidence: Latin America is the pioneer of the Global South in the endeavour to introduce so-called public care systems. Uruguay laid the foundation for this in 2015 and many countries are now following suit. The approach in setting up care systems is to create a coordinated range of care services and infrastructure. The long-term vision is to establish universally accessible social livelihood systems. The congress was an important opportunity to analyse the process in Uruguay to date, to learn from the challenges that have been overcome and those that are currently being faced, and to facilitate a lively exchange of knowledge between researchers and practitioners on the topic of care. The academic debate included traditional political economy approaches, broad debates on the quality and impact of public care programmes and the measurement of the economic value of unpaid care work. On the other hand, the conference also became a forum in which alternative care structures and care-centred philosophical approaches to the good life, Buen Vivir, were considered. Buen Vivir - which translates as "good life" in German - is based on the values and philosophy of the indigenous cultures of the Andean countries. It sees itself as an alternative development concept that questions westernised ideas of progress and prosperity as well as the prevailing development models. Buen Vivir is not about opening the gates to a single, homogeneous, unrealisable good life, but rather about people living well together in different communities and between individuals and communities on the one hand and nature on the other. For example, a collective publication by researchers from Southern Europe and Latin America shed light on forms of living together in solidarity and existing communal (self-)care structures in these regions (Vega Solís et. al., 2018). Anthropological approaches have shown a wide range of everyday strategies for how family care workers construct an architecture of social time that places social care structures at the centre (Pérez Haro, 2018). [caption id="attachment_3867" align="alignleft" width="160"] Photo: Claudio Princivalle (CC BY-SA 2.0)[/caption]

In the plenary session, economist Corina Rodríguez pointed out the urgency of positioning care at the centre of the political debate on social justice and not just in the context of gender inequality. The congress made it clear that placing care at the heart of political debates also means searching for pluralistic forms of democracy, designing forms of economic solidarity and standing up for coexistence with nature and non-human life. "Miradas Latinoamericanas al Cuidado" marks the beginning of a regional dialogue and opens up opportunities to develop a transformation strategy across national borders that places care, self-care and life-sustaining structures at the centre of socio-political processes. The congress concluded with the founding of the research network "Red Latinoamericana de Estudios sobre Género y Cuidados". Critical voices from care workers called for the second congress, scheduled for 2020, to strive for greater practical relevance and more plurality.

Cooperation between the care networks of Uruguay and Mexico

Parallel to the congress, "Red Pro Cuidados" from Uruguay and "Red de Cuidados" from Mexico organised a forum on the topic of social mobilisation and political work for just care structures by care workers, activists and academics. Both networks are associations of various initiatives of organised civil society, collectives and individuals who network to initiate an active social dialogue on the right to care and to demand the establishment of holistic care systems within the framework of public services of general interest.

What are the basic views of both networks?

[caption id="attachment_3868" align="alignleft" width="160"] Copyright: Red Pro Cuidados Uruguay[/caption]

Firstly, both networks note that in both Uruguay and Mexico, extensive care gaps are filled by unpaid or voluntary work in the community, in the household and through precarious employment. In both countries, it is mainly women, often from an early age, who bear the daily burden of unfairly organised care structures. In a context where care and self-care are not understood as a shared responsibility, human well-being depends on this isolated, invisible, feminised work. This logic individualises responsibility and makes care work one of the main sources and reinforcing factors of social inequalities - along gender lines and between women of different origins, skin colour, ethnicities, age groups and migration status. If there is no social, economic and cultural framework that makes care a shared responsibility, then people in the respective households pursue the fulfilment of their needs according to their purchasing power. This consolidates the privileges of the well-off population and cements the existing spiral of poverty of the repressed social strata and future generations. It is therefore essential to create forms of coexistence based on solidarity in which unpaid and paid domestic and care work are organised fairly and care is an indispensable basic right of all people.

[caption id="attachment_3869" align="alignleft" width="160"] Copyright: Red de Cuidados en México[/caption]

Both networks come together in the conviction that the societies from which they originate are capable of reaching collective agreements in which care takes on a different value and people can care without having to sacrifice themselves. On the horizon of both networks are societies in which all people have real opportunities to practise (self-)care, where everyone cares in just structures, where everyone experiences sufficient and good care and their human dignity is respected.

What is the basic motivation behind both networks?

Some countries are already following the example of Uruguay and both networks are convinced that many more will follow suit. As part of the forum, "Red Pro Cuidados" and "Red de Cuidados en México" decided to enter into a co-operation to strengthen these processes in Uruguay and Mexico.

Both networks are aware of their democratic responsibility to demand fair public care structures from their governments. It has taken a lot of work to make the right to care a topic of public debate. This has required a great deal of mobilisation and persuasion, alliances and dialogue. What have the networks learnt from this? What were the milestones in the process in Uruguay? What factors in the political and social context favoured this development? What traces does the process leave behind in society? Both networks explored these questions in this first forum.

The meeting led to the consensus that the social context is always decisive and that there can be no universal recipes. The development of fair care systems requires the politicisation of care work in people's everyday lives. Organised civil society and citizens' initiatives must play a leading role in this. For this reason, "Red Pro Cuidados" and "Red de Cuidados en México" have agreed to build an alliance. The aim is a joint strategic reflection process to identify, document and communicate important lessons that could also be useful for other networks. Both networks are currently systematising the strategies, progress and current challenges of their organisational and political work. The next goal is to initiate a joint monitoring platform for public care programmes in both countries. In the medium term, both networks would like to strengthen the strategic exchange process with other networks, both in the Latin American region and beyond. To this end, "Red de Cuidados" from Mexico has already entered into a lively and enriching dialogue with "Care Revolution" in Germany. Both networks met at the end of February 2019 for a strategic exchange in a video conference. We want to continue along this path, because one thing is certain: the most effective and radical learning processes come from working together.

#Politicemos El Cuidado¡ Por un cuidado justo, libre y compartido!

Contact us

Mail: contacto@reddecuidados.org.mx

Twitter: @RedCuidadosMx

Facebook: Red de Cuidados en México

Bibliography

Pérez Haro, Y., 2018. en busca del tiempo liberado. Experiencias de autonomía y desigualdad de tiempo en jefas de hogar de la Ciudad de México. Ciudad de México: Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana.

Vega Solís, C., Martínez Buján, R., Paredes Chauca, M. (2018). Experiencias y vínculos cooperativos en el sostenimiento de la vida en América Latina y el sur de Europa, Madrid: Traficantes de Sueños.

Further links

Conference Miradas Latinoamericanas al Cuidado: http://www.cuidadosygenero.com

Blog of Red Pro Cuidados Uruguay & Red de Cuidados en México: http://www.reddecuidados.org.mx/blog/

Website Red de Cuidados México: http://www.reddecuidados.org.mx/blog/

Website Red Pro Cuidado Uruguay: http://www.redprocuidados.org.uy