Abstract
Although increasingly debated in public, scholarly discourses on care remain fragmented. This is not only due to the scientific division of labor, but also to different
national research traditions as well as to categories that link predefined relations to
specific practices. In this article I set out to establish care practices as signifikan elements of
social organization in order to overcome commonplace dichotomies such as privatepublic, good–bad, modern–traditional, and micro–macro. In order to facilitate making
care a central element of anthropological theory, I revisit diverse theoretical frameworks from Marxism and feminism to disability, social security and humanitarianism
studies. With the decline of Marxist anthropology, the awareness it once raised regarding ‘public’ aspects of care has virtually vanished. Today practices of care are mostly
discussed in kinship debates, with the result that the importance of care for other social
relations is underestimated. Finally, I propose a processual conceptualization of care
with a focus on practices that can enhance our understanding of the links and overlaps
between relationships that are usually analysed within distinct spheres of social life, such
as economics and politics.
restructuring. Care practices had to be adapted to changing notions of uncertainty
and responsibility, thereby becoming a central aspect of social stability and change.
In this respect care in public debates is often conceptualized as a given element of
kinship or, more generally, of the private sphere, and evaluated as ‘good’, but also
as in decline. Linked to such political discourses are different scientific approaches
that reflect different variants of the public–private binary. For example,
Anglophone traditions have mainly conceptualized care as unpaid activities of
household reproduction. Within that branch, scholarly works in the US place
additional emphasis on questions of the ethics of care. In contrast, Scandinavian
scholarship adopts a more comprehensive notion of care in dealing with paid care
in institutions as well (Wærness, 2001; Thelen, 2014). In German-speaking countries research on care is discussed under several headings that address different
problem situations. Care for the elderly and the long-term sick (Pflege) represent
the primary focus; childcare (Betreuung) is assigned a different term altogether.1 All
that is discussed separately from care received and provided as part of social reproduction in private households. However the boundaries are drawn, each has its
own limitations for grasping the general importance of care practices for the
(re)production of significant relations.