Unburdening care: Exploring modes of care through post‐productivist thought and Australian parliamentary inquiry representations

Research on care increasingly emphasises the “care‐less” or “uncaring” nature of state‐coordinated interventions imposed on marginalised communities. However, these perspectives tend to eliminate discussions about modes of care (Fox, Critical Social Policy, 15, 1995, 107) or the ways in which care is differentially experienced and performed. This paper argues for scholars to think multimodally about care, proposing a typology of four different modes of care: care‐as‐gift, ‐burden, ‐control and ‐cure. The paper makes a case for locating these modes of care within a post‐capitalist political horizon to respond to the demand to “unburden care.” That is, the political demand to provide the economic and social conditions that best enable caregiving and reduce gendered pressures on caregivers. The paper develops these arguments through the post‐productivist thought of Kathi Weeks (2011, The problem with work: feminism, marxism, antiwork politics, and postwork imaginaries. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press) and a critical discursive examination of care representations made by submitters to two parliamentary inquiries into the Australian “pre‐employment” programme ParentsNext—a labour market activation programme that targets single‐parent caregivers “at risk of welfare dependency.” The paper contributes a critical and multimodal approach to better conceptualise competing framings of care's value and the ways in which the state can (un)burden caregiving.