The production of “rhythms of responsibility” for childcare in a post-socialist society

ABSTRACT

Drawing on 32 face-to-face interviews with mothers and childcare providers in Latvia, this paper examines the mundane mobilities. We argue that attention to mundane mobilities reveals crucial arrangements of childcare rhythms. Moving to and from childcare places, and around homes with children are central to the provision of childcare. These mobilities are expressed in temporal and personal rhythms, continuities, and disruptions. Mundane mobilities link locations between family and care providers. Childcare mobilities are further shaped by a reduction in the formal supply of childcare in post-socialist Latvia and its replacement by informal arrangements. Through the morally negotiated responsibilities of informal childcare, certain rhythms emerge, including care-time in neighbourhoods, walking and other travel routines, and play activities with children. The paper’s theoretical contribution builds on geographical and sociological interpretations of the mobility literature, here with a focus on rhythm analysis applied to childcare in everyday life. Its applied contribution rests on an understanding of how precarity is experienced, and responsibilities negotiated, with a special focus on a post-socialist society.

KEYWORDS:

• Rhythms
• mundane mobilities
• childcare
• everyday
• post-socialism
• latvia

Acknowledgments

We sincerely thank research participants for sharing their time, being mobile with children and use and telling their stories. Many thanks to Lachlan Barber and Emily Reid-Musson. We are grateful to the journal’s editors and anonymous reviewers for critical and very useful comments and suggestions. We thank Lyndsay Kramer for language editing.

Disclosure statement

We do not have any financial conflict of interest.

Data availability statement

Interview data are not shared to protect informants’ anonymity.

Notes

1. E Aukle is a web-based platform with profiles of childcare providers.

Additional information

Funding

The work was funded by the National Research Programme, grant number 5.2.4, University of Latvia .