Care Anthropology / Anthropology of Caring

13. Conclusion: Anthropology & Care Welcome to Module 13 of Transforming Lives through Care 🎯 Learning Goals By the end of this week, you should be able to:  Reflect on key themes and case studies from the subject.  Revisit and connect major anthropological concepts used to understand care.  Identify areas where you'd like to explore further or deepen your understanding. Recognise how this subject has transformed your thinking about everyday life . 🚦  Introduction Welcome to Week 12 of Transforming Lives through Care. This final week is all about reflection and revision. You’ve journeyed through many forms of care—across borders, generations, species, and institutions. This week gives you the space to look back on what you’ve learned, revisit what stood out, and consolidate your understanding of how care transforms lives—and how anthropology helps us make sen...

Welcome to Module 12 of Transforming Lives through Care . This is part of a course in the Anthropology of Care at La Trobe University. This week we explore the idea of self-care —a form of care that emerges not from institutions, but from community, resistance, and refusal. What happens when self-care becomes a political act? What does it mean to survive under conditions of neoliberal neglect? Drawing on applied and public anthropology, we consider care not just as a practice of support, but as a politics of solidarity and survival. 🎯 Learning Goals By the end of this week, you should be able to: Understand radical care as a response to neoliberalism and systemic neglect. Reflect on how care can function as collective survival and political resistance. Explore the “politics of refusal” in the context of self-care, solidarity, and everyday life. Apply anthropological insights to your own life: What might radical care look like for you? 🚦 Introduction Neoliberal s...

11. Neoliberal Care: From Welfare to Self-reliance Welcome to Module 11 of Transforming Lives through Care .  This week we turn our attention to neoliberal care —how care is reshaped when states withdraw from direct provision and individuals are expected to become self-reliant, responsible citizens. Neoliberal reforms reflect deeper changes in how care, personhood, and citizenship are understood. What happens to care when it is no longer a right, but a personal duty?  🎯 Learning Goals By the end of this week you should be able to Examine how neoliberal reforms reshape understandings of personhood, care, and citizenship. Critically reflect on the role of the state, family, and market in elder and disability care. Compare Dutch reforms to Australian care frameworks, especially in the wake of austerity and marketisation. 🚦 Introduction Neoliberalism : Although this week’s reading focuses primarily on care policy, it is also about changing ideas of...

  Main point Governments care for citizens; but along with that comes control. That's this week's takeaway. Specifically, in the modern era, governments took on the task of safeguarding people, who were now understood as 'population' or 'citizens'. To achieve this care, new kinds and levels of knowledge were created. People became legible to the government through things like statistics. This is the governmentality concept. Significance Using the structure-agency concept we could say that governmentality is a structure. We can use the " governmentality" to analyse government policies. But I think Foucault's point is not that the governments force this on us. It's not some big conspiracy. Instead the point is that we do this to ourselves. We make ourselves legible and keep an eye on ourselves. We turned ourselves into disciplined subjects. And that's where it might become really significant for you. Who you are might be, in part, a dis...

🇨🇦 Canada Canada is a vast country in northern North America, known for its multicultural society and history of colonialism. While often presented as a modern liberal democracy, Canada’s formation and development have been deeply shaped by the displacement, marginalisation, and governance of Indigenous peoples. Inuit women and children at summer camp, Fullerton Harbour, Nunavut , August 1906 ( Guardian ) 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Indigenous Canada Two main groups who are considered Indigenous to Canada are the  Inuit  and the  First Nations . These groups have distinct languages, histories, territories, and relationships to the Canadian state. 🔍 Comparison Chart Category Inuit First Nations Used to be known as… Eskimo (now outdated and considered offensive) Indian (outdated; still used legally in the Indian Act but not preferred) Region Arctic regions : Nunavut, northern Quebec , Labrado...

Tackling TB Imagine it is 1955. You are a government official in Ottawa. Tuberculosis is devastating the Inuit population, and you have been told to bring the epidemic under control. Here are some challenges: Inuit live across an enormous, remote area, often moving between camps. There are very few hospitals in the Arctic. Doctors generally don't speak Inuktitut. Inuit names can change and people don't necessarily have surnames, making it difficult to keep track of patients. Housing is often crowded, which helps TB spread. You have limited money and staff. Come up with five practical things the Canadian government should do. Think about: How will you identify people? How will you find and regularly test them? Where will people with TB be treated? Could you change where/how people live to make healthcare easier to provide? How will you know whether your policies are working? Governmentality To analyse our responses, let's build a deeper understanding of governmentality...