Matters of care
“Caring involves a notion of doing and intervening. […] Potentially, matters of care can be found in every context; exhibiting them is valuable especially when caring seems to be out of place, superfluous or simply absent. […] What care can mean in each situation cannot be resolved by ready-made explanations. It could be said that introducing care requires critical standpoints that are careful.
[…]
Susan Leigh Star taught us ways of asking cui bono that do not set us out on a crusade to uncover conventions and interests sustaining the establishment of exclusions in things. These not only invite us to ask ‘For whom?’, but also ‘Who cares?’ ‘What for?’ ‘Why do ‘we’ care?’, and mostly, ‘How to care?’ These queries can leave open the detection of specific needs for caring in each situation, instead of presupposing there is only one way of caring.
[…]
From this affective perspective, transforming things into matters of care is a way of relating to them, of inevitably becoming affected by them, and of modifying their potential to affect others. […] What is needed to generate more caring relationships?”