Care Ethics in the Time of COVID-19: Are We Our Brother's Keepers? Some Insights from the Efforts of “Food for Chennai,” India
Systemic Inequality, Sustainability and COVID-19
ISBN: 978-1-80117-733-7, eISBN: 978-1-80117-732-0
Publication date: 30 May 2022
Abstract
The work of caring has assumed utmost importance during the devastation caused by the pandemic. We employ the feminist theory of care ethics within the context of food provisioning during the pandemic, and examine the work of Food for Chennai, a group of micro-volunteers in the city of Chennai, India who provide home-cooked meals, free of charge, to COVID-19 patients and households that are in quarantine. Using textual and visual data from social media posts (Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram), interviews with an organizer of the movement, and print – media articles, we trace the evolution of this movement, and argue that this network of care could not have developed or grown without the use of digital infrastructure and the affective campaigning that it enables. We add to the scholarship of three linked bodies of work – digital activism, food ethics, and the ethics of care – by grounding our analysis in the immediacy of the crisis and suggesting avenues for thinking about ethical issues and digital activism as crisis response in the future. We conclude by offering ways of reimagining food systems that could embrace values of care in the post-pandemic world.
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Acknowledgements
Acknowledgments
We are thankful for the work of Latha Dubay and the Food for Chennai team who continue to provide food and care to COVID patients in Chennai. We also acknowledge with gratitude Latha Dubay's willingness to be interviewed despite her busy schedule, and for giving us access to her Facebook posts and image, and granting us permission to use them for academic work.
Citation
George, S. and Greene, R. (2022), "Care Ethics in the Time of COVID-19: Are We Our Brother's Keepers? Some Insights from the Efforts of “Food for Chennai,” India", Aladuwaka, S., Wejnert, B. and Alagan, R. (Ed.) Systemic Inequality, Sustainability and COVID-19 (Research in Political Sociology, Vol. 29), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 127-154. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0895-993520220000029012
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2022 Sunita George and Raymond Greene. Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited