The Third Global Carework Summit
“Carework in uncertain times: convergences and divergences around the world”
June 7-9, 2023
Costa Rica
The Carework Network is organizing a bilingual (Spanish and English) three-day conference to bring together carework researchers, scholars and stakeholders, from across the globe.
We are living in times of uncertainty along multiple, intersecting dimensions: social, economic, political, and ecological. This has long been evident in Latin America and other regions in the global south. The COVID-19 pandemic and its reverberating shocks have both deepened uncertainty and made it more visible around the world.
How does uncertainty shape the understanding and social organization of carework? How does putting carework at the center help us imagine sustainable futures where care is a collective responsibility?
What are the convergences in how carework is understood and organized across the globe? What are the divergences, given varied capacities, cultures, histories and experiences in different countries and regions?
We invite submissions that move beyond binaries of paid and unpaid care, probe intersections of individuals, family, community, market and state, and analyze the interlocking inequalities of gender, class, race and migration. We encourage analyses of convergences and divergences in the understanding and social organization of carework across regions. We also welcome approaches that analyze a specific sectoral or geographic context.
Topics may include but are not limited to:
● The impact of global health crises on carework
● How economic and political uncertainties shape carework through privatization outsourcing, or informalization by the state
● How neoliberal policies individualize risk
● The longstanding need for more state responsibility for carework
● How the erosion of carework conditions has gendered, racialized and classed implications
● Migrants’ transnational carework
● Gendered divisions of care provision in families and communities
● How to defamilize care to achieve gender equality through new visions of fatherhood, community support, and state responsibility
● Labor organizing to improve conditions of care work
● How environmental crises impact the conditions of care work. And how quality carework might create a more sustainable world
The summit will have multiple formats that together connect scholarly knowledge to public conversations. We welcome proposals for the following submission types:
1. Individual paper proposals should include an extended abstract of 1,000 words.
2. Fully constituted panel proposals should describe the topic and relationship between papers in no more than 1,000 words and provide 500 word abstracts for each paper. Panels should have 3-5 papers. We encourage panels that bring together participants from different institutions, countries and regions. We particularly encourage and will give priority to panels that include participants from the global South and North instead of from just one context.
3. Public dialogue proposals will communicate research findings and arguments in a concise manner that is suitable to a nonacademic audience. These dialogues will take the form of 5 minute presentations followed by ample discussion and serve as a bridge among scholars, policy makers, stakeholders, and the broader public.
Proposals should include an abstract of 500 words.
All submissions should include title, name, contact information for author(s), institutional affiliation and status (student, faculty, etc). All submissions should include objectives or research questions; methodology, geographical or sectoral context, main findings and conclusions.
We welcome submissions in English or Spanish, from all academic disciplines, advocacy or nonprofit organizations, and public and private sector organizations. We also encourage participation by undergraduate and graduate students.
The Carework Network is an international organization of scholars and advocates who focus on the caring work of individuals, families, communities, paid and unpaid caregivers, social service agencies and state bureaucracies.
Authors and organizers should submit a proposal for a paper, panel or public dialogue to submissions@careworknetworkresponds.com (by e-mail only) no later than October 1, 2022. If selected, you will be notified in December and expected to submit a full paper by April 1, 2023.
Questions about the Global Summit may be directed to