Month: February 2008

At a Women’s World conference in Korea two years ago some community artists laid out a large piece of canvas on smooth ground, along with pencils, markers, and paints for passersby to express themselves. The resulting piece of collective art was tapestry-like, with a layered intricacy exceeding that of most renegade graffiti. My camera framed one particular rectangle within it… Read more →

My all-time favorite popularization of care issues is the comic book Adventures of Carrie Giver, available from T.R. Rose Associates. I like its emphasis on extending the current Child Credit to families providing care for anyone–not necessarily a child. But I think there’s a serious problem with this proposal as it now stands–a problem that characterizes much of the current… Read more →

What if all the parents in the U.S. got up one morning and went on strike, demanding more recognition and support for the work they do? It’s kind of a kooky question, but it calls attention to a central theme of research on care–the undervaluation (you could even call it “non-valuation”) of care that is provided outside the market. The… Read more →

Sometimes its hard to see through that almighty dollar. We need to stop and ask what the economy is FOR, anyway. This question is the focal point of a campaign being organized by filmmakers John de Graaf and Laura Pacheco, an outgrowth of the Forum on Social Wealth, described in my last post. The campaign got off to a big… Read more →

Much of my work focuses on the social organization of care. I am especially interested in the parallels between care work and other economic resources that are not privately owned or priced on the market. For more on these parallels– including some videotaped lectures by six great speakers, check out the Forum on Social Wealth. You can read my short… Read more →