The Intensification of Liberian Women's Social Reproductive Labor in the Coronavirus Pandemic: Regenerative Possibilities

Abstract

674 Feminist Studies 46, no. 3. © 2020 by Feminist Studies, Inc. Erica S. Lawson, Florence wullo Anfaara, Vaiba Kebeh Flomo, Cerue Konah Garlo, and Ola Osman The Intensification of Liberian Women’s Social Reproductive Labor in the Coronavirus Pandemic: Regenerative Possibilities In Liberia, a post-conflict country of five million people, the coronavirus pandemic has intensified women’s social reproductive labor to institutionalize peace, security, and gender equality. The challenges facing Liberian women are partly rooted in the conditionalities imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), civil wars, and the extraction of natural resources to enrich local “warlords” and international investors, all of which have eroded the health infrastructure as well as public trust. Traditional Marxist analyses of such challenges largely center commodity finance, private property, and labor for wages. Given that women are typically unable to benefit from capitalism in these ways, this commentary explores how we think about women’s social reproductive labor. Broadly informed by this question, we discuss the strategies that Liberian women have used to manage the coronavirus pandemic, how these strategies exemplify and extend women’s reproductive roles, and how women view the fallout from the virus as a threat to their fragile peace gains. We locate our examination at the site of gendered work in Peace Huts. These are community councils largely managed by Liberian women for transitional justice, security, and peace-building goals. This commentaryisbasedonresearchinprogresstodocumentwomen’ssocial reproductive labor in Peace Huts. The quotes presented are excerpted from recent conversations with Liberian women about the virus’s impact Lawson et al. 675 on their lives, including those who provide or use Peace Hut services, many of whom are at the forefront of pandemic containment. Feminist political economy interrogates gendered social reproductive labor and its contributions to capitalist modernity, even as it is undervalued . Women’s social reproductive labor, largely unpaid and invisible, sustains families and households, provides care for children, the elderly, and the sick, and “cushion[s] ‘crisis shocks’ whether associated with financial crashes, conflict outbreak or humanitarian disasters.”1 Feminist scholars further address how capitalism generates different forms of gendered debt traps for women, as they try to earn a living in informal sectors where their income-generating activities are precarious.2 Our thinking is framed by Nancy Fraser’s critique of a narrow view of capitalism, which focuses solely on the economy, to an expanded reading of it as an “institutionalized social order” that relies on, while simultaneously denying, the centrality of reproductive labor to its operationalization .3 Further, informed by the argument that social reproductive labor is essential to “the protection and strengthening of communities and intimate relations,” we understand this type of work as central to Liberian women’s mass protests against the fourteen-year civil war (1989– 2003).4 The continued and strategic deployment of this labor holds politicians and citizens accountable for maintaining peace, and importantly, women identify connections between peace building and containing the spread of the coronavirus.5 In other words, because women rely more closely on community and social networks, they are invested in protecting these assets with their labor. 1. Shirin M. Rai, Jacqui True, and Maria Tanyag, “From Depletion to Regeneration : Addressing Structural and Physical Violence in Post-conflict Economies ,” Social Politics 26, no. 4 (2019): 565. 2. Genevieve LeBaron and Adrienne Roberts, “Toward a Feminist Political Economy of Capitalism and Carcerality,” Signs 36, no. 1 (2010): 19–20. 3. Nancy Fraser, “Critique of Capitalism: What Should Socialism Mean in the 21st Century,” June 11, 2020, Institute for Critical Social Inquiry, New School, New York, YouTube Video, 1:21:90, https://www.criticalsocialinquiry.org /photosvideos. 4. Rebecca Hall, “Caring Labours as Decolonizing Resistance,” Studies in Social Justice 10, no. 2 (2016): 220. 5. Helene Cooper, “Liberia’s Women Warn Male Presidential Candidates: Keep the Peace,” New York Times, October 9, 2017, https://nyti.ms/2yTP6lg. 676 Lawson et al. Liberian women are extended a degree of cultural respect for motherhood , and this facilitates some support for women’s political participation in the society.6 Furthermore, they view their social reproductive work as regenerative with the potential to advance transitional justice and post-conflict recovery centered in a care-focused economy.7...