Paper short abstract:

Sustained water quality monitoring of the Kinabatangan river wetlands by indigenous villagers, foregrounds local agency. Analysis reveals duty of care towards human and non-human subjects and social learning generated by intergenerational trust and learning networks including citizen science.

Paper long abstract:

This presentation is a case study that contributes to the conceptualisation of and methodology for studying caringscapes/carescapes that are oriented to nonhuman subjects. It concentrates upon how some local villagers along the lower Kinabatangan River express their ‘duty of care’ toward the river by their sustained local participation in assessing changing water quality in their wetlands and their sense of responsibility to foster care for the river among fellow villagers along the river. Making sense of this duty of care entails examining not only how the local sense of place centres upon the river, but also how local communal and personal identity derives from association with the river – peoples who inhabit this stretch of the river generically identify as Orang Sungei (river people). In analysing the importance of learning networks, intergenerational trust and local agency to the development of social learning, this case study highlights the agency of those experiencing the process of social and ecological change as a social concern, in which community participation in citizen science derives from their strong river-focussed sense of place and their care they express toward the river, which contextualised as a two-way interaction between society and ecology. Examining the sense of their duty of care also requires studying how their techniques of assessment mesh with scientific methods for assessing water quality. Consequently, the presentation contributes to the literature on participatory development practices and transdisciplinarity in studying social learning initiatives in contexts of environmental care.

KEY WORDS: Ethics of care, non human context and political and cultural economies

Paper short abstract:

This paper argue that acts of care identified as a part of social reproductive activities are a vital aspect of the rural agrarian women's resistance to neo-liberalism and contribute to women's agency. It will contribute to expand the understanding of care.

Paper long abstract:

Scholarships at present have expanded our understating of the concept of care, going beyond the mere understanding of mutual aid and self-care to include solidarity and redistribution forms of power (Hobart and Kneese, 2020).

While conducting fieldwork during the pandemic and the economic crisis in Monaragala, one of the poorest districts in Sri Lanka, I witnessed sharing of care burden among the women attached to a rural women's organisation. The care activities were visible in both their personal and professional lives. While engaging with the organisation, women share care activities which include assisting cultivations, sharing produce, food and childcare activities. Furthermore, they have created a network of care to sustain the lives of their colleagues and members. These acts of care are important in a society where women are marginalised and mostly poor. They provided value to unpaid care work and created their informal care networks when faced with constrained resources. These diverse acts of care contribute to their activism, collectivity, resistance activities against neo-liberal economic policies and women's agency.

Using a Feminist Political Economic perspective and the case study of Monaragala Sri Lanka, I will argue that acts of care identified as a part of social reproductive activities are a vital aspect of the rural agrarian women's resistance to neo-liberalism and contribute to women's agency. This will contribute to expanding the understanding of care and to re-theorise it.

Reference

Hobart, H. I. J. K., & Kneese, T. (2020). Care: Survival Strategies for Uncertain Times. Social Text, 38(1 (142)), 1-16.

Paper short abstract:

Drawing on fieldwork of an LGBTIQ trading group, and a socialist soup kitchen, I investigate the relation between kinship practices and politics, particularly through investigating social 'containment' of biological, social and political life within ‘solidarity economies’.

Paper long abstract:

In liberal society, the market holds an enduring monopoly on the reproduction of social and biological life. In its interstices, we find practices and social movements that find place for, and represent its subaltern underside. Failing to provide for the most vulnerable in society, grassroots organisations providing food, ‘solidarity economies’ in particular, have filled gaps in diminishing welfare states, and have simultaneously effloresced into movements that question the centrality of markets.

This paper explores life and political agency channeled and sustained through these ‘solidarity economies’ - economic systems that exist adjacent to markets, that politicise their economic assistance, and in doing so, problematise the separation between charity and social movement. Drawing on ethnography from an LGBTIQ trading group / mutual aid facebook site, and a socialist soup kitchen, who sustain life through biological, psychological, social and political care, drawing from Lazar’s concept of containment developed in ‘The Social Life of Politics’, I investigate how such work drawn from the anthropology of trade unions can be applied to social movements, and thereby understanding the relation between kinship practices and politics.

Paper short abstract:

This paper will address the ways a specialist clinic that provides gender affirming services tries to address the way it provides care to those on their waitlist. Wait times are longer than 12 months, and this paper reflects on the challenges of delivering care while waiting for an appointment.

Paper long abstract:

Given the dearth of public primary care services providing gender affirming care to Trans, Gender Diverse, and Non-Binary people, the few existing specialist services have long waiting lists. This often means clients put their gender affirming journey on hold, and leads them to think that they cannot affirm their gender until they can receive medical affirmation services. This long waiting period has been identified as worsening people’s co-occurring mental health conditions and causing further stress. This paper will address the complex ways in which a specialist clinic aims to minimise these negative outcomes, while paying attention to the structural constraints of the healthcare system. This will be done through a reflection on my work conducted at the Monash Health Gender Clinic to provide some potential answers to the issue of how the clinic can provide ‘care’ while people wait to receive care services. Given the politicised landscape fraught with misunderstandings regarding the healthcare of Trans, Gender Diverse, and Non-Binary people, it is important to pay attention to how care is delivered, understood, and organised within the healthcare system.