Talking about care and care work. Experiences from the Care Revolution network

A contribution by Matthias Neumann

This text is a revised version of a workshop input that Matthias gave at the Care Revolution anniversary in October 2024. Since then, there have been repeated exchanges about our central concepts. Assuming that care activists have had similar experiences in other contexts, the article will be posted on the website. We look forward to feedback.

Talking about worry - not a distant exchange of ideas

Since the Care Revolution network was founded, there have been discussions about the use of the terms "care" and "care work". Many conversations, debates and written contributions have shown that although we have care and care work as a common point of reference, we sometimes mean and associate very different things with them. As we are involved in the network with the aim of political change, this is not an academic debate, but rather a matter of defining what is at the core of our joint endeavour.

Because the decision to become politically active in the care sector has a lot to do with personal experience, the use of the term is not just a question of weighing up arguments from a distance, but is also emotionally charged. After all, whether one is ascribed or denied the status of being a carer, whether one is described as active, passive or not at all, whether one's own caring activity is described as work, whether one's own experience is reflected in a concept of care that others use - all of this also has a personal impact. This can hardly be otherwise, because caring relationships themselves are touching in many ways. The fact that the use of care concepts is an emotional topic is not a disadvantage. After all, indignation, disappointment and longing not only cause us to argue about terms, they also drive our actions.

To prevent such a debate about terms from becoming destructive, it is important that we know our motivations and understand which experiences suggest different terms. Or in a nutshell: A debate about terms of care that wants to be exclusively "rational" is irrational. In any case, it is also worthwhile to better understand what motivates people who want to talk about care in a completely different way than I do (in each case). Because in order to be able to act together, it is not very exciting to be convinced: "XY says something that I see differently." It is more important to better understand what is so important to XY about what she* says. Following a framework outlining the topic, I will give a few examples of problems and points of contention that have arisen in the Care Revolution network when talking about care.

Care and care work are core concepts in the Care Revolution network, despite all the differences in detail. The terms give relevance to many things that seemed to be purely private matters without social significance, such as housework, self-care or affective labour. Care and care work are at the centre of a social alternative that places relationships between people at the centre. By bringing the actions of people who have been sidelined with their necessary work and as subjects of shaping the future and change into the light, the reference to care should also be the basis for connections between people in care relationships at eye level, e.g. in the case of those dependent on care, carers and caring relatives. This coming together, "connecting care politics", is also indispensable for the Care Revolution concept.

In recent years, the concept of care between human and non-human living beings, or care for the latter and for the ecological networks that support everything, has also been increasingly discussed in the network. Again, this has to do with connections that are perceptible as a search in various movements. This can be seen in slogans such as "Life instead of profit" or "Revolution for life". The slogans show: In large parts of the social movements, the concept of caring attentiveness is part of the common foundation, similar to solidarity, inclusive behaviour or positive reference to diversity.

However, the more differently and comprehensively the terms "care" and "care work" are used, the more their content is in danger of being lost; a source of misunderstanding and possibly also of anger if terms are not understood as intended, if A excludes what is important to B from her* experiences and thus also seems to ignore B herself. Precision harbours the danger of blanking out, expansion harbours the danger of arbitrariness.

This preface was very general, but is intended to show what the following examples have in common. This is because very specific conflicts arise that need to be dealt with for a common political practice, whether they arise from misunderstandings or from different understandings.

A few examples

1) People often talk about care givers and care takers without further ado. In 2015, at one of the first network meetings, we set up parallel groups in which people in different care positions dealt with "their" field: children, health, etc. One working group focussed on assistance. One working group focussed on assistance. Here, people in need of personal assistance demanded that we stop talking about "giving and receiving care". Their reasoning: This choice of words sorts those involved in the care relationship into active and passive, and ultimately also into subjects and objects. As a result, it is no longer apparent that everyone involved in the relationship contributes to the success or failure of the care relationship. The fact that everyone plays an active and formative role does not deny that a caring relationship is very often asymmetrical, i.e. that some are much more dependent on its success than others. Likewise, people with different (behavioural) abilities come together in this relationship. Despite the asymmetry, however, it is important to remember that everyone contributes. This principle does not only apply to assistants: I am also in an asymmetrical situation with the GP. But I also contribute: I report complaints, implement the doctor's advice or not, etc. This is what makes a framework in which everyone involved is encouraged to participate so important, even just from a care perspective. Another example for parents among the readers: Do you find describing your children as 'care takers' in your relationship apt and analytically helpful? In any case, this intervention by those receiving assistance has led us in the Care Revolution network to speak of people in caring relationships rather than the giving and receiving of care.

2) In basic presentations, I regularly start by describing what care work is before discussing whether it is paid or unpaid, its extent or the question of who does this work. That makes it easy for me. Because describing what care is would be much more difficult - activity, attitude, result, ...? I think others feel the same way. Because very often people act as if it is self-evident what is meant by care, or they talk about care and describe care work. Even care work cannot be easily delineated, even if activities can be defined and listed, for example as follows: Promoting and restoring the physical, mental and spiritual abilities of specific individuals, i.e. healing, comforting, caring, nursing, counselling, etc. (cf. (cf. e.g. Winker 2015: 17) However, there is also care as an attitude that is also incorporated into the organisation of work. This includes a caring attitude directed towards the well-being of the other person in the caring relationship. However, this is not at all identical to the above-mentioned delimitation of care work. This is because care, as defined, can exist in many situations without these being meaningfully described as care work. Conversely, overworked care workers, e.g. family carers or daycare workers, report how their overload impairs the attentive care that forms the basis of care, a central source of suffering for care workers under current conditions - and one of the reasons for speaking out. If we fail to do so, we will also miss important contradictions. For example, putting care at the centre of a society does not mean that care work is more important than all other work or that everything that is particularly important is care work. It is therefore also problematic to ascribe special characteristics to care workers in the sense of people who perform a high level of care work either professionally or unpaid. But even without such an attribution, it is true that they are people in special, demanding, often overtaxing situations. Their working conditions (of struggle), everyday contradictions and pressures are not simply obvious, because we all do care work. Listening is irreplaceable.

3) In the Care/Climate/Revolution working group, which existed in the Care Revolution network from 2022 to 2024, we had intensive, controversial and also emotional discussions about whether it makes sense to extend the concept of care to relationships between human and non-human living beings. My impression - as someone who is in favour of at best a cautious extension of the concept of care - was that the indignation in each case was due to the fact that those arguing differently were ignoring key aspects of their own understanding of care. We shared many things, such as the crucial importance given to relationships in social processes and ecological systems. We also jointly recognised that the capitalist mode of production destroys social and ecological relationships. We also agreed that a social alternative should support the flourishing of life in relationships, against the instrumental treatment of people and, if possible, against the ruthless instrumentalisation of non-human living beings. The difference, however, was that opponents of the expansion feared that the element of benevolent, needs-orientated attentiveness was in danger of disappearing from the concept of care. After all, the peat moss, the apple tree and even the cow are certainly not interested in the well-being of humans. This position therefore emphasises that not every reproductive relationship is also a caring relationship. However, this does not make them any less important. On the other hand, there is the view: With the concept of care, hidden, devalued activities and relationships have been brought to the centre of social analyses. This suppression and devaluation is repeated in relation to the vital relationships of living beings in material cycles if this mutual dependency is not also understood as care. So there are analytically and emotionally important concerns that the other side seems to ignore with its concept of care. The dispute was about this presumed suppression; that is why it was/is so important to reflect that the view of the other side is at least understood and taken seriously.

In the working group, we also asked ourselves whether we can at least speak of care for nature without further ado. After all, the structural carelessness of capitalism towards unpaid labour and nature in the sense of the interested ignoring of what is necessary for reproduction is often contrasted with this: We care for nature, for networks of life, just as we care for other people. This is intended to express the fundamental, connecting movements of a caring, preserving attitude. At the same time, however, this reinforces the division into subjects and objects of care. The criticism of this corresponds to the first example presented here. For "caring for nature" also involves objectification: benevolent management instead of withdrawing human influence.

4) A crucial point in the founding of the Care Revolution network was to emphasise the commonality of work in care facilities, in voluntary work and in domestic and family work: Overlooked or devalued, relationship-orientated, given too little time and resources, gendered, it "could be much nicer if not for...". The differences in working conditions and conditions of conflict management are all too easily overlooked; care workers also protested against this. From their point of view, such an equation also means that they fight for years to finally have their work recognised as qualified skilled work, and then care activists lump it together with domestic work. An argument that in turn threatens to devalue domestic work as something that does not need to be learnt, is not challenging, not "real work like professional work". It is therefore all too easy for a demand to be recognised for one's own work to lead to the devaluation of the work of the "other side" - unintentionally and in both directions. Therefore, while emphasising the commonality of care work, we must not forget the differences in the actual work, conflicts and power relations, nor that we can only understand the situation of the other party to at least some extent by listening.

5) Not only in the network, but also in the care movement as a whole, the question of how we evaluate care work and what demands we make for its redistribution based on this evaluation is important: Is care work, especially when it becomes excessive because it is unequally distributed, a source of strain and exclusion from other areas - political action, other fields of work, time for oneself without tasks, more diverse relationships - , which are important for personal development, well-being and, under capitalism, also for security? Or is it so valuable as work, as a relationship, that it is less about its equal distribution and more about creating conditions that support caring relationships and relieve the burden on care workers? Both answers to this question justify the demand for a needs-based, democratically organised care infrastructure that is accessible to all. However, the urgency of the need to distribute care work equally and how it is justified varies greatly: Spreading a burden across all shoulders or making a source of fulfilment of needs accessible to all? Or can both be valid at the same time?

Perhaps a conclusion

This list of examples remains without a proper, rounded ending. Because I, at least, still don't know how to talk about care and care work properly. But maybe that's not such a bad thing, because I think we can take something away from these examples: Try to speak and write as accurately as possible. Listen to others and try to understand their positions. Listen to the experiences and emotions behind the sentences. Better to ask three times more to understand a situation that you are not in yourself. And finally: Experiencing each other in shared care and political practice is just as instructive as talking.