Everyday Social Infrastructures and Tapestries of Care in Times of Austerity

Abstract

Getting by in times of austerity often requires intricate tapestries of care, carefully woven fabrics of familial and extra-familial relationships, or what I describe as ‘everyday social infrastructures’. In this chapter I start to apply the relational framework outlined in Chap. 2 and weave these ideas together with more detailed empirical accounts. To situate these ethnographic findings, feminist concepts of care, particularly care ethics and social infrastructures of care, are applied and extended. I illustrate the extent to which austerity transforms relational geographies of care (who does what, for whom and where), whether inter- or intra-familial, within friendships and other intimate relationships. While proponents of care ethics typically prioritise where care takes place or how care changes over time, I advocate a closer look at the relational qualities of care: how care is embedded within, and has the potential to shape, everyday social infrastructures. Starting with an overview of literature on feminist politics of care, gendered labour and social infrastructures, the chapter is arranged around three key themes that emerged from analysis of the empirical data: intergenerational and gendered infrastructures, tangled, knotty and textured infrastructures of care, and fieldwork as care work.