The spatialization of care. Weaving care relations through mobility

Abstract

Matters of care has been a relevant issue for several decades in feminist studies, particularly in relation to the power relations that have been built from their feminization, and the consequences they have had in all spheres of life. Despite their importance, the way care is spatialized has not been sufficiently treated based on the daily interrelations in which they are part of. Based on research taken place over the course of a decade by a collective group of researchers on the daily mobility practices as well as on care issues, we have been able to identify six categories that contribute to the spatialization of care from a relational spaces approach. Through mobile ethnographies of urban dwellers’ daily lives, we were able to understand how care strategies and circulations take place, and their relation with subjects of care, practices, time spaces, places, affects, materialities and objects that support care in cities like Santiago, Concepción or Temuco. Understanding them from a perspective of relational space helps to visualize the complexity that care implies, and at the same time the intertwined implications of space that go beyond domestic space. This paper contributes to the existing work on the invisible aspects of care including the spatialization of care and to the discussion on the need to defamiliarize and collectivize care in Chile. This is particularly relevant today, as care became a major issue in Chile and globally due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as it was possible to identify the material reality of care in tangible ways, and also to question the ways we want to care for ourselves and our living space in the future.