Care (and its lack thereof) is intrinsic in all human relations and scales of everyday life: it can refer to the material and emotional care of our closest ones, but also to the implicit care (e.g., when we boycott Manolada strawberries due to the appalling working conditions), or even to more collective actions that aim to sustain and “take care of” our collective infrastructure, common goods, and endangered democratic institutions (e.g., participating in medical social centers and solidarity schools that were developed during the previous decade in order to support those in need).
In Greek, the word frontizo (taking care of) had already been used since ancient times to refer to a wide range of meanings—for example, it meant to think, to evaluate, to curate, to be interested in. However, its use is now limited to the concept of nursing and accommodating, something that takes place at home or in other private spaces and mostly concerns vulnerable members of society (kids and the elderly), who cannot take care of themselves. This care is mainly provided by women, (under)paid immigrants, and individuals that generally remain “invisible” and outside the “productive” economy.
However, the successive and interconnected crises we have experienced around the world in recent years (economic, environmental, pandemic, etc.) have made it clear that care is for everyone. It is endemic and indispensable in all human relationships—from the most intimate to the most formal and institutionalized, from the closest and most local to the most distant and globalized. In the same way, the policy for it must be equally broad. That is why we define care in the broadest possible way as our individual and collective capacity to provide the political, social, material, and emotional conditions that enable all, including non-human lives on the planet, to thrive.