Emma Dowling

An examination of the global economic crisis from the perspective of care We are living through a crisis of care. Looking at austerity measures, cuts and closures, it is easy to conclude that there is a lack of care, that we exist in a society that is careless. Care--the practice of valuing ourself and others--allows us to become capacious, to be free to act on the world and to be well. Care allows us to expend our energies on each other, not giving it up to be monetised and privatised. In this groundbreaking book, Dowling argues that this crisis is an issue not of measure, but of practice. In some senses there is an excess of care, exemplified by the increase in worry, anxiety and compulsions. In others, we quite rightly lament the absence of what we consider to be good care or real care: caring in ways that do not diminish but enhance our capacities to act. Care weaves together scenes from everyday life to trace the outlines of this crisis of care, one that is not so much initiated as exacerbated by the global financial crisis. She poses the question, can care be a strategy of resistance, a way to build a bulwark of power against the vicissitudes of our everyday toils? How might that be different from the individualising, anxiety-producing 'self-care' we are so often urged to do? And if we still care, what might we do?

What Caused It and How Can We End It?

The Care Crisis

An examination of the global economic crisis from the perspective of care Valuing care and care work does not simply mean attributing care work more monetary value. To really achieve change, we must go further. In this groundbreaking book, Emma Dowling charts the multi-faceted nature of care in the modern world, from the mantras of self-care and what they tell us about our anxieties, to the state of the social care system. She examines the relations of power that play profitability and care off in against one another in a myriad of ways, exposing the devastating impact of financialisation and austerity. As the world becomes seemingly more uncaring, the calls for people to be more compassionate and empathetic towards one another—in short, to care more—become ever-more vocal. The Care Crisis challenges the idea that people ever stopped caring, but also that the deep and multi-faceted crises of our time will be solved by a simply (re)instilling the virtues of empathy. There is no easy fix. The Care Crisis enquires into the ways in which the continued off-loading of the cost of care onto the shoulders of underpaid and unpaid realms of society, untangling how this off-loading combines with commodification, marketisation and financialisation to produce the mess we are living in. The Care Crisis charts the current experiments in short-term fixes to the care crisis that are taking place within Britain, with austerity as the backdrop. It maps the economy of abandonment, raising the question: to whom care is afforded? And what would it mean to seriously value care?

Keir Milburn

David Harvie

Paolo Gerbaudo

Nicola Montagna

Gareth Brown

Dimitris Dalakoglou 

Sue Mew 

Universidad Nomada

Nicola Montagna and Sue Mew, eds. This issue of Social Justice investigates some of the most significant cycles of protest that have occurred across the globe since the current financial, economic, and political crisis started in 2007. It covers four Eurozone countries, Greece, Italy, Spain, and the UK, and one Mediterranean country involved in the Arab Spring, Egypt. The financial crisis has resulted in economic collapse (Greece, Spain, and Italy, to mention a few), a crisis of political legitimacy (Egypt and Italy, for example), and has been used as an excuse for further neoliberal restructuring of the welfare system (e.g., in the UK, Greece, and Italy). Contributors offer a historical framework for these events, which are unfolding daily, and discuss the liberatory and social justice strategies of political movements–from Occupy to the Indignados and Egyptian soccer Ultras. Also discussed are changing police tactics in the face of mounting mass protest. - See more at: http://www.socialjusticejournal.org/?product=conflicts-within-the-crisis-vol-391-2011#sthash.iZzRrDaE.dpufThis issue of Social Justice investigates some of the most significant cycles of protest that have occurred across the globe since the current financial, economic, and political crisis started in 2007. It covers four Eurozone countries, Greece, Italy, Spain, and the UK, and one Mediterranean country involved in the Arab Spring, Egypt. The financial crisis has resulted in economic collapse (Greece, Spain, and Italy, to mention a few), a crisis of political legitimacy (Egypt and Italy, for example), and has been used as an excuse for further neoliberal restructuring of the welfare system (e.g., in the UK, Greece, and Italy). Contributors offer a historical framework for these events, which are unfolding daily, and discuss the liberatory and social justice strategies of political movements–from Occupy to the Indignados and Egyptian soccer Ultras. Also discussed are changing police tactics in the face of mounting mass protest.

Social Justice Vol. 39:1

Conflicts within the Crisis

Emma Dowling

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