Expropriated care as a policy of technoproductive gearing. Autoethnographic life support in the pandemic era

Abstract

We know that the burden of care falls on women's bodies and, also, that they are the ones who give up time: rest, leisure, pleasure. This paper aims to show how life is sustained in times of pandemic, in the context of a global care crisis and a worsening of the situation of women caregivers after COVID-19. Who cares while the virus inhabits our daily lives?  Methodologically, we will use autoethnography as a technique that allows us to reflect on care from our dual role as researchers and caregivers. Here we will make use of the epistemic value of emotions in research processes with feminist methodologies. In the work we appeal to sustain a reflexivity that allows itself to be affected and traversed by emotions as a tool in the production of knowledge. Through discursive recovery we will address the consequences of the simultaneous realization of telework and care work in the same territory.  The new modality of daily life forces caregivers to have unlimited productivity. The power of the machine continues to be sustained by the expropriation of the vitality of those we care for, we are the common good desecrated by the technoproductive system itself for its sustainability. In this article we propose to rehearse reflections on the emotions that appear when caring and, therefore, the emotions that allow life to continue reproducing and sustaining itself. And we do so starting, in turn, from a situated feminist ethic.