WUNRN
Women In Development Europe (WIDE) is a European feminist network of women´s organisations, development NGOs, gender specialists and women´s rights activists. WIDE monitors and influences international economic and development policy and practice from a feminist perspective.
> Direct Link to 72-Page WIDE Report: WE CARE! Feminist Responses to the Care Crisis
> http://62.149.193.10/wide/download/WIDE%20CONF%20REPORT%2009.pdf?id=1030
Brussels 02.11.2009
Putting Care at the Centre of Human Life
WIDE Annual Conference Report: “WE CARE! Feminist
Responses to the Care Crises”
Care and care work must be understood – not
as prerequisites to economic growth – but as the centre of human life. This
understanding can bring about a political and economic shift in priorities from
moneymaking and consumption, to creating new ways of being and living that are
more dignifying and ethical.
A new publication from WIDE, the Annual
Conference report, entitled WE CARE! Feminist responses to the care crises,
explains how the interlocking global crises impact women’s cultural, economic and social rights. It discusses in
detail how women’s role as caregivers is affected by the current global
economic policies, and it outlines proposals, best practices and suggestions to
create a world that is based on alternative concepts of work, livelihoods and
well-being in relation to care work.
What is ‘care’ anyway? To successfully address the care crises requires questioning and
changing existing definitions of care which identify women as natural carers.
The ways of perceiving and treating ‘care work’ within mainstream economics and
political spaces must also be challenged. WE CARE! Feminist responses to the
care crises opposes the conventional understanding of care as something
’external’ to economic and market systems – something of limited or no value –
and proposes overlooking the artificial separation between productive and
reproductive economies.
The report
recommends considering the interconnections between the financial, economic and
care crises. “We
need a care lens to look at the process of capital accumulation and what
happens in the process of development, rather than assuming a priori that
development/growth will lead to an improvement in care-giving and human
welfare,” says Shahra Razavi from UNRISD, Switzerland, a speaker at the WIDE
conference.
The report
states that the current period of crisis should be taken as an opportunity to
shape a feminist vision of an alternative economy (a ‘caring economy’) that
transforms care roles and definitions and propagates a vision of transformation
of the dominant neoliberal, profit-driven economic paradigm.
According to Stephanie Seguino (Department of
Economics, University of Vermont), “This is (…) a transformative moment in
history, providing a window of opportunity to challenge the restrictions on
growth and development enforced by developed countries and the international
financial institutions. It is an opportune moment to reconsider the view that
developing countries should rely heavily on exports as a stimulus to growth.”
The report
gives an overview of all plenary presentations and discussions held at WIDE’s
2009 Annual Conference, entitled ‘WE CARE! Feminist responses to the care
crises’ hosted by WIDE Switzerland (18–20 June 2009). The conference gathered
around 180 participants from all over the world, who jointly reflected on the
political and policy urgency of re-examining the care economy and care ethics
driving our institutions, policies and society as a whole, and on the need to
envision alternative concepts of work, livelihoods and well-being in relation
to care and care work.
-ENDS-
NOTES
TO THE EDITORS:
·
The
electronic version of the report, together with the reports of workshops that were
held during this Annual Conference, is available on WIDE website: www.wide-network.org .
·
If you want to know more about the WIDE Annual Conference, visit
our blog www.widenetwork.wordpress.com: read
stories; listen to the interviews; enjoy pictures and watch the videos! You can
also download presentations from the plenary sessions and various workshops.
·
WIDE is a European feminist network of women’s
organizations, development NGOs, gender specialists and women’s rights
activists. For more than 25 years, WIDE has dedicated itself to raising
awareness, monitoring and influencing international economic and development
policies and practices from a gender perspective, promoting women’s rights as
the basis for the development of a more just and democratic world order.
For more information, please
contact:
Natalie Giorgadze, WIDE: natalie@wide-network.org, give a
call on +32 2 545 90 76 from Monday till Thursday.
Natalie Giorgadze
Media and Communication Officer
WIDE - Globalising Gender Equality and
Social Justice
59, Rue Hobbema,
B-1000 Brussels BELGIUM
Telf. +32 2 545 90 70 Fax. +32
2 512 73 42
Website: www.wide-network.org
E-mail address: natalie@wide-network.org
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