Critical Perspectives on Care: Social Reproduction Theory in a Global Context

Critical Perspectives on Care: Social Reproduction Theory in a Global Context is a virtual speaker series that aims  to investigate how notions of care and reproduction have been theorized and practiced by feminist scholars and activists in a global context.

The  series emerges from a growing interest among feminist scholars in Social Reproduction Theory (SRT). It seeks to address the problem of navigating between a universal notion of care, as enshrined in the United Nations, where racial or geographical difference is not given priority, and the feminist critique of this universalist perspective that gives priority to cultural, religious, and national differences and identities, but is unable to posit a common ground among these differences.

Within this framework, the series emphasizes diverse methodological and geographical approaches to questions such as: how have feminists theorized and practiced care in different social, political, and economic contexts? How can we approach care without fetishizing local perspectives or universalizing and essentializing gender in a transnational perspective? Furthermore, how can we understand relations between what is termed the Global North and the Global South? For example, how does the fantasy of the Global South generated by the Global North (i.e., that relations in the Global South are more caring, organic, natural, harmonious) inform the North? How can we think about care from the perspective of a Global South within the Global North?

By bringing together contemporary and interdisciplinary perspectives, this series hopes to  foster a conversation that will address some of the blindspots in the existing approaches. The series will feature international scholars and facilitate the production of an edited special journal issue.