Articulating mobile gendered landscapes: Thinking with care cultures

Abstract

This paper relates work on global neoliberal gendered labor to geographies of care and it provides a tangible example of culturally specific dimensions of the relationship between health and place. The context is a temporary work migration pattern of Bulgarian women in Italy, who provide 24/7, live-in care to elderly, often dying patients. Through a longitudinal ethnographic fieldwork, this paper illustrates how mobile gendered landscapes are articulated and made meaningful by the research participants, offering a different reading of global care regimes. I argue that this articulation is a way of thinking with care cultures and showing how these are (re-)imagined by women who care in less than caring institutional/economic/familial landscapes. The paper contributes the concept 'care cultures' as a productive lens, through which to account for how place, people, ethics and care practices grow, merge and (mis-)align in attempts to construct and maintain meaningful lives.

Keywords: Care; Care continuum; Culture; Gender; Place.