What does care really mean? For feminist sociologist Bev Skeggs, it should be at the heart of how we organise our society – from tax to health, to climate action. She talks to Alexis and Rosie about the costs of complacency, her own shocking experience of care (or lack of it) as her own parents faced the end of life, and why we have every right to expect the state to look after us. Care, she shows, is political: there’s no care without society; no society without care.

Plus, Bev casts a sideways glance at “self-care” and explains why browsing a sociology textbook might just be better for you than a trip to a pricey spa. The team also discusses their recommendations for pop culture lessons in care – from Adrienne Rich to Robin Williams.

Guest: Bev Skeggs
Hosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu Truong

Executive Producer: Alice Bloch
Sound Engineer: David Crackles
Music: Joe Gardner
Artwork: Erin Aniker
Special thanks to: Kirsteen Paton

Episode Resources

Bev, Rosie and Alexis recommend:

• TV adaptations (various; 1993-2001; 2019) of Armistead Maupin’s “Tales of the City” novels (1974-2014)
• “Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution” (1976) by Adrienne Rich
• The movie “What Dreams May Come” (1998), dir. Vincent Ward, starring Robin Williams

From The Sociological Review:

• “A Crisis in Humanity: What Everyone With Parents Is Likely to Face in the Future” (2017) by Bev Skeggs
• On radical care (2020) by Dan Silver and Sarah Marie Hall
• On caring for plants during Covid-19 (2020) by Gavin Maclean
• On care, activism and environmental justice in Chile (2017) by Manuel Tironi and Israel Rodríguez-Giralt
• On love labour as a particular kind of care (2007) by Kathleen Lynch

Further readings:

• “Formations of Class and Gender” (1997) by Bev Skeggs
• “Learning to Labour” (1977) by Paul Willis
• “The Care Manifesto” (2020) by The Care Collective
• The Women’s Budget Group
• Solidarity and Care During the Covid-19 Pandemic (2020), a public platform by The Sociological Review
• “Saving the Modern Soul: Therapy, Emotions, and the Culture of Self-Help” (2008) by Eva Illouz
• “Who Will Care for the Caretaker’s Daughter? Towards a Sociology of Happiness in the Era of Reflexive Modernity” (1997) by Eva Illouz
• “Growing Up Girl: Psychosocial Explorations of Gender and Class” (2001) by Valerie Walkerdine, Helen Lucey and June Melody
• “A Burst of Light” (1988) by Audre Lorde
• “Self-Help, Media Cultures and the Production of Female Psychopathology” (2004) by Lisa Blackman
• “It's Different for Girls: Gendering the Audience for Popular Music” (2000) by Diane Railton

Find more at The Sociological Review.

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