The Arrow of Care Map: Abstract Care in Ideal Theory

Abstract

This paper advances a framework to conceptualize societal caregiving arrangements abstractly. It is abstract in that it brackets the meaning of our particular relationships. This framework, which I call the arrow of care map, is a descriptive tracking model that is a necessary component of a theory of justice, but it is not a normative prescription in itself. The basic idea of the map is then multiply specifiable to track various ascriptive identity categories as well as different categories of care labor. In this way, the idea of the arrow of care map serves as a conceptual frame with which to identify societies' caregiving arrangements. I characterize it as a component of "ideal theory" insofar as it seeks to clarify our values without the immediate aim of formulating principles to govern a just society. The resultant partial theory of justice is one that responds to nonideal theory's critiques of the ideological nature of liberal contractarianism's idealizations and abstractions while moving towards new visions of a just society.Keywords: ideal theory, nonideal theory, contractarianism, care, dependency care, liberal feminism, feminist liberalism, justice, distributive justice Care, compassion, and concern are crucial elements of meaningful intimate relationships Tronto 1993;. In addition, the labor of hands-on care to meet a person's basic needs often occurs within our closest relationships. However, caregiving also occurs in paid and professional contexts, which sometimes cross national boundaries through migrations of nannies and 1 I presented this paper to the Society for Analytical Feminism, Wellesley University, and as the 2017 Inaugural Robinson Grover Lecture at the University of Connecticut, where Elise Springer and Rik Hine offered interesting analyses of the view that I plan to pursue in future work. I thank the participants of each of these events. I owe a particular debt of gratitude to Cynthia Stark, Lisa Tessman, and Diana Tietjens Meyers for philosophically open-minded discussions about the nature of my project. The written version of the paper was improved by comments by Richard Fumerton, two anonymous reviewers, and the editors of this journal. other care workers. Moreover, even in the contexts of families and friends, care that is given and received can be structured by internal hierarchies and inequities.Various cultures and societies have different ways of organizing life around care, such as gendered arrangements, extended families, and socialized care. These arrangements have particular histories. The history of slavery in the US means that black women who tend to white women do so in a context that is racially and historically charged. 2 In societies with extended family systems, systems of care provision are structured by gender oppression and internally structured hierarchies and norms. For instance, a daughter-in-law may provide elder care to her parents-inlaw, where that practice is linked to preferences for males in those cultures, or a youngest daughter may be designated...

Why Liberalism Needs Autonomy: Achieving a Mainstream Society Without Intergroup Caregiving Exploitation

“…To identify whether exploitation is occurring, an analysis that employs my arrow of care map is needed to obtain transparency for the practice. The arrow of care map requires fact-finding to determine who is caring for whom, and to evaluate these patterns at a systemwide level that abstracts away from individual relationships to be able to assess patterns across groups (Bhandary, 2017). For instance, in the U.S., black and brown people are in caregiving relationships toward whites, which coincides with a cultural coding that shapes and frames relationships of attendance.…”

Caring for Whom? Racial Practices of Care and Liberal Constructivism

“…After he convinced her to walk away with their offending dog, we continued to speak (he was holding their other dog), and he ultimately acknowledged their wrongdoing, saying that how they responded was not right, and they had not displayed the proper concern for me. 28 Over the following several days, the bite turned red, and a bruise appeared in the shape of half a dog's jaw (half of the jaw because, when it occurred, I was wearing a capri length legging, so that the dog's lower jaw made contact with my bare skin, while the upper half of the jaw made contact with the legging). Ultimately, it took about three weeks to heal.…”

“…In doing so, I further advance the theory of liberal dependency care (LDC), which is an anti-oppression liberalism that evaluates care through the lens of a minority woman, thereby bringing together care theory, liberalism, and women of color feminism(s). 4 The theory of liberal dependency care evaluates the justice of a society by including caregiving arrangements in its system of practices [16], and in doing so, it evaluates these arrangements in a way that is open-ended about the practices and caregiving relationships compatible with a just society [12,[28][29][30]. 5 Crucially, the arrow of care map [28] supplies a conceptual scaffold for evaluating group-based patterns of caregiving.…”

“…4 The theory of liberal dependency care evaluates the justice of a society by including caregiving arrangements in its system of practices [16], and in doing so, it evaluates these arrangements in a way that is open-ended about the practices and caregiving relationships compatible with a just society [12,[28][29][30]. 5 Crucially, the arrow of care map [28] supplies a conceptual scaffold for evaluating group-based patterns of caregiving. The arrow of care map demands that we track who receives care, and from whom, in ways that evaluate system-wide patterns and distributive inequalities.…”

“…This is my account here centers questions about who it is who endorses and hears claims. This approach deliberately makes individuals the salient objects of analysis, and it is complementary to the analysis of caregiving injustice I make possible with the "arrow of care map" [28]. 17 See Tronto and Fisher for the original account of care as attentiveness and responsiveness (p. 127, [6]).…”