ScholarWorks@숙명여자대학교

초록

Existing care theories often attribute the diagnosis of a “careless society” to general features of modern capitalism—liberal individualism and an emphasis on exchange value. While supporting this view in principle, this study locates the culture of non-care and the neglect of care labor within the capitalist structure of inequality, which fails to economically reward or culturally value social reproduction labor. It argues that the care crisis, which manifests itself as tensional experiences and cultural discontents, arises from the transformation and contradictory articulation of the economic/material and cultural/ideological aspects of care/social reproduction labor within this structure of inequality. As the first part of the two-part study “Capitalism and (Non)Care,” this paper first situates care within the framework of Marxist feminist theory of social reproduction, and lays out the cultural studies theoretical framework for examining the developmental trajectory and conflicts between ‘economic transformation’ and ‘cultural transformation’ of care/social reproduction labor. It then explores the cultural/ideological dimensions of care labor through Maria Mies’ concept of ‘housewifization’ and discusses its economic dimensions through Nancy Folbre’s ‘care penalty.’ These elements together have sustained capitalism albeit in tension, and their imbrications and clashes under neoliberalization intensify the care crisis that will be explored in the second part of the study.

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