Care Anthropology / Anthropology of Caring

Welcome to Module 14 of Transforming Lives through Care . This is part of a course in the Anthropology of Care at La Trobe University. 🎯 Learning Goals By the end of the this week you should be able to: Explore how care can involve coercion, control, and violence Examine how moral and social obligations shape care decisions Reflect on involuntary care practices in your own context 🚦 Introduction Violence… It’s not the first word we usually associate with care. But what if care involves being tied to a hospital bed? Locked in a room by your family? Or forced to endure pain as part of treatment? This week we explore the uncomfortable space where care and coercion overlap. In some communities, violence is seen as a necessary step toward healing—and family members become both protectors and enforcers. Is this still care? 📚 Recommended Materials 📘 Essential Materials Read: Garcia, Angela. “Serenity: Violence, Inequality, and Recovery on the Edge of Mexico City” ...

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...

🇨🇦 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...

This worksheet--Governmentality and Care--is part of the subject  Transforming Lives through Care  at La Trobe University. The aim of this worksheet is to develop a deeper understanding of governmentality by recognising, applying, and critiquing the concept in relation to care. Introduction: Governmentality  As you know,  governmentality  is a mentality that developed in the modern era. In this modern era, people are now rendered as citizens. Citizens should be allowed to live happy, productive lives to a ripe old age. Governments create policies to allow this. Governments try to help citizens live happy, healthy lives. But to do this, statistics and a new way of knowing the population through statistics is required. At the same time, docile minds and productive bodies are created. So we have a new kind of person and a new kind of subjectivity. Recognising "Governmentality" First, see if you can recognise when a scholar is applying this concept. Consider the pa...

Welcome to Module 10 of Transforming Lives through Care , a first-year Anthropology subject at La Trobe University.  In this module, we anlayse welfare and care in terms of governmentality . The basic idea is that modern systems of care though non-violent, actually create greater control over the population. This is not overtly violent but it is more effective. 🎯 Learning Goals By the end of this week, you should be able to: explain the idea of  governmentality use  governmentality  to analyse caring practices  critique the idea of  governmentality 🚦  Introduction Governmentality is a mentality. Most people are unaware that they have this mentality. Although this mentality has only emerged in Europe's modern period, it seems to us to normal and natural. We think that governments should help people live long and happy lives. To achieve this we expect governments not to control us but to take  care   for of us. We, in turn, make ourselves g...

Structure & Agency  How did you get to class or work today?  If you drove, you:  (a) had a range of roads available to you.  (b) chose which route to take.  If you took public transport, you:  (a) had trains, buses, or trams running on particular routes and timetables.  (b) chose which service to catch.  If you travelled another way, explain:  (a) the physical and social arrangements that made your journey possible. (b) the choices you made within those arrangements.  In the examples above, does " structure " describe (a) or (b)? What about " agency "?   Anthropologists often distinguish between structure and agency .  "Structure" refers to the social, economic, political, and physical arrangements that shape what people can do. Structures create opportunities but also impose limits.  "Agency" refers to a person's capacity to make choices and act within those structures. We cannot act with complete freedom, but...

 Welcome to Module 9 of Transforming Lives through Care. This is part of a course in the Anthropology of Care at La Trobe University. In earlier modules, we focused on care in informal settings (such as the home and family) and through informal mechanisms (such as kinship , ritual and reciprocity ). In this and the following modules, we shift our attention to professional care in formal settings. It is 'professional' because carers are trained, follow recognised standards and are paid for their work. And it is 'formal' because the care is organised through institutions such as hospitals, aged-care facilities, government agencies and private organisations, rather than being provided through family or community relationships alone. What is the difference? Consider this story from Aya Yasutake's book on caring for dementia patients in Japan. A woman explained to Yasutake:  If my dad has dementia, I can't tell him he needs to go to an aged Home. I have to ask the ...

  Welcome to Module 8. 🎯 Learning Goals 🚦 Introduction: Migration 📚 Recommended Materials 📘 Essential Materials Read:   Hochschild, A. (2000). The Nanny Chain . The American Prospect , 11, 1-4.  "Are first world countries such as the United States importing maternal love as they have imported copper, zinc, gold, and other ores from third world countries in the past?" Notes:   🗣️ Interactive tasks 🏁 Conclusion Summary:   Significance:   What’s Next:   🔎 Further Research

Welcome to Module 7 of Transforming Lives through Care. In previous weeks, we have considered care through angles of society & culture, kinship, the Gift, social reproduction, gender, and more-than-human . Now we turn our attention to our bodies through the concept of embodiment. The idea is that our bodies are cultural bodies. Culture shapes the way our bodies move and care . 🎯 Learning Goals Understand how care is lived and experienced through the body. Explore the anthropological concept of embodiment as a way of analysing care. Recognise how routine bodily practices—rather than abstract feelings—can express deep commitments to others. 🚦 Introduction: Embodiment Caring is always embodied. When I cuddle a crying baby, two bodies are involved. This may seem obvious, but what happens when we take that fact seriously? What if, instead of starting with the idea that “I think therefore I am,” we begin with “I have a body that is in space, moved and moved by others”? From this per...

Welcome to our module on Social Reproduction. This is part of Transforming Lives through Care, an Anthropology subject at La Trobe University. In the first half this course we've been looking at how care operates in informal settings including within the family or friendship groups and even with animals.  Now we're going to examine one of the most influential—and provocative—critiques of care under capitalism. Silvia Federici argues that many activities we think of as "care" are also forms of labour that are essential to keeping capitalist society running. Strathern, shows that these ideas may not apply to other cultures, and at the same time, presents the most most profound challenge--in my experience at least--to the what it means to be 'me'. 🎯 Learning Goals By the end of this module, you should be able to: Define social reproduction . Explain Federici's critique of unpaid care work. Compare Federici's and Strathern's perspectives. Evaluate ...

Overview: More-than-human care In the exercise you explore one of anthropology's biggest questions about care: who receives care, and why? You will encounter people who treat pigs, goats, dogs, animals, spirits, and even some humans in unexpected ways. Rather than judging these practices, anthropologists try to understand the cultural beliefs, relationships, and circumstances that shape them. Try to think about the examples using concepts we've already encountered, particularly: Culture: How do different societies understand care? Kinship: Who is treated as family?  The Gift: Is the care reciprocal? Case Study 1: Pigs as Kin in Vanuatu Based on Margaret Jolly, "Pig Love" In Vanuatu, pigs are not just livestock. They are kin—named, raised with affection, and even suckled by human women. “In some places a woman’s relation to her pigs becomes frankly maternal... including lactating women suckling piglets.” Jolly describes this emotional and  embodied  intimacy as part ...