Paper short abstract:

I look through the lens of care as task - at 'the carer', sometimes paid, sometimes not, in high demand but doing a job no one wants - to interrogate the concept of 'care', and recent interest in developing an 'anthropology of care'. What value lies in this anthropological approach?

Paper long abstract:

Care is not only polysemous, it is a contronym: it may refer to a highly valued relational attribute, a social aspiration; or to demeaning tasks or a social burden. To be 'a caring person' might be an insult or a compliment. And yet this word vies for the ubiquitous place that 'God', 'love' and 'culture' have in our contemporary vocabulary.

I look through the lens of care as task - at 'the carer', sometimes paid, sometimes not, in high demand but doing a job no one wants. What does the ambivalence towards care as value, care as relationship, care as role tell us about those things it is often opposed to: work, uncaring, careless? What can we learn by substituting this term with its synonyms: attentiveness, wariness, safe, controlled? Interrogation of this complex term, and the ways in which this impacts on care work, helps identify the social and economic contradictions, and the stigmas (gender, ethnic, age) associated with acts of care or being caring. I will argue that this contronym is of integral use to neoliberal policy, and the shaping of the neoliberal subject. What does this say to those who would develop an anthropology of care?