Matters of Care

Description

Matters of Care

"Matters of care" extends and transforms Latour's notion of matters of concern by emphasizing responsibility, maintenance, attachment, and ethical involvement. The concept is associated particularly with Maria Puig de la Bellacasa, though it also draws from feminist theory, science and technology studies, and care ethics.

While matters of concern ask how issues are assembled, matters of care ask how they are maintained and how humans and non-humans become bound together through practices of attention and responsibility.

Puig de la Bellacasa argued that concern alone can remain descriptive or analytical. Care introduces an ethical and practical dimension: concern becomes an active commitment.

Care is not understood as merely emotion or personal feeling. It includes the material labor, maintenance work, and ongoing practices necessary for sustaining relationships and systems.

Examples

Examples include:

• Soil care in agriculture, involving farmers, microorganisms, ecological processes, knowledge systems, and practices of stewardship.

• Healthcare systems, which depend not only on medical expertise but on often invisible work of maintenance and support.

• Commons governance, where shared resources require continual acts of monitoring, participation, repair, and stewardship.

• Ecological restoration, which involves long-term relationships of maintenance rather than one-time interventions.

Typology

From concern to care

The transition from concern to care can be summarized as:

• Matters of fact: "What objectively exists?"

• Matters of concern: "What assemblage produces and sustains this issue?"

• Matters of care: "What relationships and practices must be maintained for this issue to flourish?"

This movement represents a broader shift from detached observation toward situated participation and responsibility.

Matters of care have become influential within ecological politics and commons-oriented thinking because they foreground maintenance and interdependence. Institutions are understood not merely as structures of coordination but as practices of collective care.

In ecological institutional design, resilience arises not simply from efficient management but from sustaining reciprocal relationships among humans, technologies, and ecosystems.