11. Self-care: Survival, Resistance, & Radical Refusal

Welcome to Week 11 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 systems often frame care as a personal responsibility—something you should manage on your own, in private, with limited support. But what if care could be a form of political action? This week, we examine self-care as both survival and resistance. Care is not always soft. It can be strategic, collective, and fiercely political—especially when it arises from refusal to accept marginalisation, burnout, or institutional neglect.

This topic links to work in ANT2CIA: Core Issues in Anthropology and introduces key ideas from public and applied anthropology.

📘 Essential Materials

Read: Hobart & Kneese, “Radical Care.” (Excerpt: first 1,000 words of the full article)

Radical care is collective, political action that links survival and solidarity. It resists neoliberalism and systemic neglect through community-based practices that challenge exclusion, co-optation, and paternalistic forms of care.

📚 Recommended Materials

• Sara Ahmed, Self Care as Warfare (Excerpt: 1,000 words)
• “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” – Audre Lorde (quoted in Ahmed)
• Read Ahmed's full post here

🗣️ Interactive tasks

• Reflective Task: Write a “self-care diary” for three days. Track the care you give, receive, or neglect—including care involving non-human actors (objects, technologies, environments).
• Prompt: How do you care for yourself as a student? How will you care for yourself going forward? Could your self-care be a form of political activism?
• Connect: Consider the “politics of refusal.” What kinds of care do you choose not to accept? What does that refusal say about power?

🏁 Conclusion

Summary

Radical care is a practice of survival in contexts where care is unequally distributed or actively denied. It is not about self-care as luxury or consumer product, but about collective endurance and resistance. Hobart and Kneese invite us to consider care not as a solution provided by the state or market, but as a form of social and political struggle.

Significance

This week challenges dominant narratives about care. Rather than a soft, private practice, care emerges here as a tactic of resilience, refusal, and community-making. In a neoliberal world, caring for yourself and others can be an act of defiance—and anthropology gives us the tools to see and name that resistance.

What’s Next

Next week, we bring the subject to a close by revisiting core themes and reflecting on how anthropology helps us understand what it means to care.

🔎 Further Research

This week's theme relate to Applied/Public Anthropology. La Trobe Anthropology offers a related called ANT2CIA Core issues in Anthropology.