Short Abstract

Assumptions of care as inherently good have been unsettled, revealing its entanglement with its apparent opposites. It is time to place the care–violence nexus centre stage. What theoretical, analytical, and methodological possibilities emerge when they are examined explicitly together?

Long Abstract

Anthropologists have long engaged with the concept of care, exploring its relationship with abandonment, neglect, harm, exclusion, suffering, and control. These dynamics emerge both when care is reduced or absent, and as intended or unintended consequences of practices and discourses centred on care itself. Such work has deepened our understanding of care by revealing its complexity and contradictions. Yet, while care has been directly linked to its apparent opposites, it has been less frequently examined in relation to violence.

Now that care is no longer unequivocally associated with the “good”, it is time to advance an understanding of care—and of violence—that addresses these two concepts directly. We ask what possibilities emerge when violence is seen as manifesting through the absence of care, through care itself, or even as care. This is not only to unsettle assumptions about care, but to extend our understanding of both care and violence, each with longstanding anthropological trajectories and distinct theoretical lenses for capturing human experience.

This panel invites theoretical, empirical, and methodological contributions that centre on care and violence, including those engaging with the following questions:

– How might care and violence offer new perspectives on a world increasingly polarised, where care often becomes a language of sameness and violence an act directed towards otherness?

– What insights into care and violence arise from ethnography, given the often ambivalent and unsettling lessons from those who practise or receive them?

– What methodological innovations are needed to confront the conundrums of researching care and violence?

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