feminism

Providing care to people in need is usually seen as supremely humane and ethical. But look more closely and you'll find that "care" is often a vehicle for self-serving social and political control. It's often considered acceptable to withhold care from people who don't have the "right" citizenship, skin color, cultural background, or gender identity, or who don't have money to buy the care they need. 

For an illuminating deep dive on the politics of care, check out a new book, Pirate Care: Acts Against the Criminalization of Solidarity (Pluto Press). I interviewed two of the co-authors -- Italian activist Valeria Graziano, now living in London, and Croatian activist Tomislav Medak -- in my latest Frontiers of Commoning podcast (Episode #58). The third co-author is Croatian activist Marcell Mars, now living in Coventry, England.

Pirate Care is an omnibus term coined by the authors to describe acts of care that defiantly challenge the "organized abandonment" of people in need. In the tradition of civil disobedience, pirate care activists intervene in situations to show organized compassion and social solidarity for ordinary people. 

In the process, they also aim to show how the state, markets and patriarchal families are the ones decided who is deserving of care, and on what terms. Certain types of care are seen as unpatriotic, a threat to business revenues, or unacceptably kind to marginalized people.