Care and more-than-human agency in Annemarie Mol and María Puig de la Bellacasa

• Grant number: 22/05836-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: September 01, 2022
• End date: August 31, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology
• Principal Investigator: Anna Catarina Morawska Vianna
• Grantee: Amanda Finotti Lagos Ferreira
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Care, a polysemic category that is difficult to define, appears as central in many studies in the social and health sciences, as well as inserted in feminist debates on the division of labor. It has been gradually studied in the field of social studies of science and technology (MARTIN; MYERS; VISEU, 2015; LINDÉN; LYDAHL, 2021). Among the researchers in the field, Annemarie Mol and María Puig de la Bellacasa have become references on the subject. Based on a bibliographic review of the ethnographies conducted by these authors - in hospitals for the treatment of patients with chronic diseases and in permaculture communities - this project aims to investigate and compare how the notion of "care" is situated in their research and the role of the more-than-human agency in its enactment. The more-than-human agency concerns, in each scenario, a heterogeneous and multi-species web of agents such as microorganisms, animals, protozoa, algae; as well as machines, techniques, diagnostic technologies and many others. Guided by the question: what is there in common between enacting care in hospitals for chronic patients and in permaculture communities? The research also intends to understand and exemplify how the authors stress the opposition between "cold" and "artificial" technology/technoscience and "affectionate" and "human" care, as well as exploring the feminist perspective of both within the social studies of science and technology. (AU)