Caring in precarious times: Engagement as a situated discreet practice

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-2-2024

Abstract

From 2016 until 2022, Brazil experienced a political and economic crisis that profoundly impacted healthcare, social, and educational services in the country. Based on our experiences as Ph.D. students at Federal Universities conducting ethnographic research on care practices for dependent adults in two main cities of Brazil from 2016 to 2019, we will reflect on what it means to care in precarious times. We examine three dimensions of "careful engagements" we experienced during our fieldwork: (1) actively participating in the creative day-to-day efforts to mend precarious infrastructures of care; (2) acting in favor of lasting and collective infrastructures of care through a public positioning; (3) caring for the very conditions of possibility for doing research. Focusing on a decision-making process regarding what event to attend on a specific day, we contend that engagement is a situated discreet practice that shapes and is shaped by the conditions of possibility of the research and that does not place the researcher in the center of it but as an actor who needs to learn how to engage in collective efforts managing their specific abilities. Finally, we propose that being attentive to these three concomitant and often conflicted dimensions is essential for "thinking with care" in times of austerity.

Publication Source (Journal or Book title)

Ethical and Methodological Dilemmas in Social Science Interventions: Careful Engagements in Healthcare, Museums, Design and Beyond

Number

500

First Page

117

Last Page

128

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