Laboratorio: Understanding the politics of care

October 2024 – December 2024
Scientific Supervisor: Prof. Enzo Colombo
Instructors: Dr. Camille Allard
N. hours: 20 (10 meetings)
N. maximum participants: 20
Eligible participants: students from REL, GPS, PPPA and GLO
N. ECTS: 3 ECTS as “further training activities” (“ulteriori attività formative”)
Final evaluation: attendance (at least 75%) and class presentation.

How to register: Interested students must send an email to camille.allard@unimi.it, by September 15, 2024.
Learning objectives: The Covid-19 outbreak has shone a light on the importance of ‘care work’, in maintaining the functioning of our society, and the essential role of those performing this work. ‘Care’ has also been at the forefront of social movements, such as the women’s strikes in 2018 and 2019. ‘Care’ is also now increasingly part of ecological and social justice movements agendas, calling for a better and fairer world, and better care towards the environment. In many different aspects, ‘care’ seems to be at the heart of the concerns of the new generations. Simultaneously, however, more and more organizations such as business companies call themselves ‘caring’, and more marketing strategies exploit the idea of ‘self-care’ to sell their products. In this laboratory, we will review the origins and evolutions of the concept of ‘care’, looking at its ambivalent position in feminist debates, and we will analyze its political and social importance nowadays.