Global care ethics: beyond distribution, beyond justice

Abstract

This article defends an ethics of care approach to global justice, which begins with an empirically informed account of injustices resulting from the workings and effects of contemporary neo-liberalism and hegemonic masculinities. Dominant distributive approaches to global justice see the unequal distribution of resources or ‘primary goods’ as the basic source of injustice. Crucially, however, most of these liberal theories do not challenge the basic structural and ideational ‘frames’ that govern the global political economy. Instead, they seek to ‘correct’ unjust patterns of distribution according to an ideal theory. Subjects in these theories are generally understood as abstract, autonomous and impartial; this is in contrast to an ethics of care, which starts with an ontology of the subject as embodied, vulnerable and relational. The first part of this article explores the role and nature of theory in relation to the task of considering injustice on a global scale and offers a critique of the narrow focus in traditional theories of justice on the distribution of ‘primary goods’. The second part considers the effects of neo-liberal globalization and hegemonic masculinities on global working families in order to illustrate the relationship between care and global justice. The final section sketches out a care-ethics approach to global injustice, focusing on three features: first, care as a relational approach; second, the focus in care ethics on intersecting structures of injustice; and third, care as a multi-scalar approach to global injustice.

Keywords:

• ethics of care
• global justice
• neo-liberalism
• gender
• hegemonic masculinities

Notes

Hochschild argues that while the sex trade and some domestic service are brutally enforced, in the main the new emotional imperialism does not issue from the barrel of a gun (2002, 27).Today's north does not extract love from the south by force: there are no colonial officers in tan helmets, no invading armies, no ships bearing arms sailing off to the colonies. Instead, we see a benign scene of Third World women pushing baby carriages, elder care workers patiently walking, arms linked, with elderly clients on streets or sitting beside them in First World parks. (Hochschild 2002, 27)