The care economy and the state in Africa’s Covid-19 responses

Abstract

The responses of many low-and middle-income households to Covid-19 in Africa were mediated by the state through various means including direct cash transfers, food distribution, and distribution of rural agricultural produce to urban areas, in response to the social reproduction crisis that the pandemic precipitated. Taking the relationship between the state and household as its focus, this article reflects on the social and political questions emerging at the conjuncture of social provisioning and economic collapse. Central to these concerns is the structure of care economies in Africa and their relationship to the capitalist state. RÉSUMÉ En Afrique, l'état a joué un rôle important dans la réponse à la pandémie de Covid-19 de nombreux foyers à faibles ou moyens revenus, employant diverses méthodes telles que les virements directs en espèces, la distribution de nourriture, et la distribution de produits de l'agriculture rurale dans les régions urbaines. Cette intervention de l'état avait pour but de répondre à la crise de la reproduction sociale accélérée par la pandémie. Cet article présente une analyse de la relation entre l'état et les foyers, et se penche sur les problématiques sociales et politiques qui émergent à la conjoncture du dispositif social et de l'effondrement économique. La question du fonctionnement des économies des soins en Afrique et de leur relation à l'état capitaliste est centrale dans cette discussion.

Feminist global political economies of work and social reproduction

“…First, it confirms the feminist thesis that the crisis of care, in many contexts, really is embedded in a broader crisis of social reproduction (Fraser, 2017), and not only in the Global North, where this argument has been developed considerably (see also Himmelweit, 2006), but also in parts of the Global South, where the state may have been systematically 'missing' for some classes and communities, or where it may have a long history in practicing the externalisation of all activities supporting the regeneration and sustenance of life beyond work. Arguably, some regions of the Global South are going through a perennial crisis of social reproduction, which is not simply shaped by neoliberalism but crafted by multiple complex geopolitical and capitalist pressures, including past and present histories of colonialism, neo-colonialism, occupation and, today, the COVID-19 pandemic (on this, see Ossome, 2020).…”

“…For instance, the lethal impact of the pandemic has been amplified by the systematic erosion of healthcare budgets since the 1980s (Gianella et al, 2020). By the same token, the rampant processes of labour informalisation sustained throughout the neoliberal period have neutralised many states' effort to provide rescue packages to the most vulnerable communities (Ossome, 2020). Seen from the Global South, the COVID-19 pandemic unleashed a crisis of social reproduction for both capital and labour (Rao, 2021).…”

The impact of migratory practices on food security and asset accumulation in Zimbabwe: a study

“…The world of work has become largely informalized, rendering a large part of the global population a 'reserve army of labor' due mainly to the contraction of the global economy during the 2007/2008 economic crisis and de-industrialization in the South as a result of structural adjustment programmes (Jha, 2019). More recently, the Covid-19 pandemic has reduced global employment as well as the earnings of an estimated 81% of the global workforce (Ossome, 2020). Making the livelihoods more vulnerable in Africa has been the absence of radical social protection policies that recognize the changing nature of the global economy and social policy programmes adopted by most governments that seek to sustain the neoliberal architecture (Adesina 2020).…”

COVID-19 and crises of capitalism: intensifying inequalities and global responses

“…Despite the significant transformations of globalised contemporary capitalism through financialisation and technological progress, the COVID-19 crisis is a stark reminder that the kernel of human activity is intrinsically material and embedded in the socio-economic and biophysical basis of production and reproduction. The agro-ecological root of the COVID-19 crisis (Akram-Lodhi 2020 this issue; Picchioni, Po, and Forsythe 2021 this issue; Wallace et al 2020); the unfolding trail of human death and suffering, sharply aggravated by the systemic squeeze of waged and unwaged social reproduction (Federici 2004;Ossome 2020 this issue); the plight of workers and the macroeconomic challenges facing countries in the Global South (UNCTAD 2020) − all shed light on the centrality of how we produce necessities, care for each other and trade across the world. The failings of global capitalism as a system fundamentally built on the material exploitation of nature and of gendered and racialised global working classes have been vividly foregrounded.…”