‘Care: Critical Dialogues & Transdisciplinary Approaches’ event recap
In June 2024, the Centre for Research in Culture and Communication at Loughborough University hosted an interdisciplinary symposium on ‘Care’ – which in recent years has become an increasingly urgent issue for the social sciences, humanities and beyond. The day-long event showcased some of the cutting-edge research being carried out at Loughborough in Communication and Media; Criminology, Sociology and Social Policy; English; and Sports Technology; as well as by a number of leading scholars from other UK universities.
The symposium’s topic of ‘Care’ proved a generative concept that facilitated critical dialogues between scholars from diverse disciplinary backgrounds. Over the day, around thirty attendees joined the event in the university’s Hazlerigg Council Chamber, with over forty also attending online from across the world.
In recent years, scholarship across a wide range of disciplines has seen a ‘turn to care’ (Aust 2021), with an increasing recognition of the intrinsic interdependence and shared-yet-unequal vulnerabilities of all human and non-human life. As speakers at the symposium recognised, we are living through a ‘crisis in care’, in which the material and affective capacities to reproduce and sustain life are under intensifying pressure. This event thus sought to showcase leading academic voices whose research investigates ‘care’ in all its many and diverse dimensions.
The day was opened by Professor James Stanyer, Director of the CRCC, as well as co-organiser Dr Jilly Kay. The event’s keynote was delivered by Professor Jo Littler (Goldsmiths University), an internationally recognised expert on the politics of care. Professor Littler’s keynote ‘From care to carewashing….and back again’ drew on some of her collaborative work with The Care Collective, as well as her reflections on the ‘carewashing’ branding strategies of contemporary universities, which have since been published in the journal Educational Philosophy and Theory.
The day proceeded with three themed panels on the topics of ‘Care and technology’, ‘Care and the media and cultural industries’, and ‘Health, wellbeing and social care’.
The panel on technology included papers by Dr Kristina Saunders (University of Glasgow): ‘(Self) Care and reproductive justice: the role of online communities and health information as contraceptive care’; Professor Massimiliano Zecca (Sports Technology Institute, Loughborough University): Frailty in Older Adults: How Robotics can Help to Improve Health and Function’; and Dr Saul Albert (Communication and Media, Loughborough University): ‘Improvisational care technologies: a case study of the assistance/recruitment continuum in ‘smart homecare’ interactions’
The panel on the media and cultural industries featured papers by Dr Hannah Hamad (Cardiff University): ‘Nurses and/as Caring in Media Fictions of NHS Care Work’; Dr Yuval Katz (Communication and Media, Loughborough University): ‘Can we care about our enemies?’; Dr Jade French (English, Loughborough University): ‘Emotion, ageing, and the care home in post-war British novels since 1948’.
The final panel on health, wellbeing, and social care included papers by Professor Alison Pilnick (Manchester Metropolitan University): ‘Thinking (micro)sociologically about care’; Dr Amy Cortvriend (Criminology, Sociology and Social Policy, Loughborough University): ‘Care of people seeking asylum in the UK’; and Dr Catherine Coveny (Criminology, Sociology and Social Policy, Loughborough University): ‘Rhythms of care’. The themed panels generated cross-disciplinary discussions between academic fields that are not usually in dialogue with one another. In a world in which ‘carelessness reigns’,the papers and ensuing conversations highlighted the urgent need to embed care more fully in all realms of social, political and cultural life.