Thematic Panel 21

Care in South America: Challenges and tensions in research and public policies

Conveners:

Karina Batthyany and Natalia Genta, Sociology Department, Faculty of Social Sciences, Universidad de la República, Uruguay

Discussants:

Javier Pineda, Ph.D. in Geography, from the University of Durham, England. Associate Professor at CIDER (Interdisciplinary Center for Development Studies) Universidad de los Andes, Colombia
Karina Batthyány, PhD in Sociology from the University of Versailles Saint Quentin in Yvelines France. Full Professor of Sociology Department, Faculty of Social Sciences, Universidad de la República (Uruguay). Coordinator of Research Group “Sociology of Gender” in same institution

The purpose of this thematic panel is to present and discuss researches and reflections on care, focused on Latin American countries. Social and gender inequalities and residual policies, characterize the region and establish the conditions under which care researches and policies of care are developed.

The changes experienced in recent years in Latin American societies regarding women’s participation in the labor market, the aging process and family transformations, invite us to reflect on the social organization of care in changing contexts.

Abstracts are expected on the following topics:

1) The trajectory of the conceptualization of care in the region, emphasizing on the theoretical developments themselves (reflections from different perspectives of care, links between gender theory and care, considerations about different dimensions of care, etc)

2) Social organizations of care and new and old problems around how and who provides care (offer and demand of care, family arrangements and strategies, formal and informal mechanism to provide care, etc)

3) The methodological challenges faced by the region and the innovative experiences to overcome them (reflection on the quantitative and qualitative measurement of care, measurement of quality care in institutions, challenges in measuring the time to care provided to the elderly, and the qualitative aspects of care,  economic valuation of care, etc)

4) The analysis of care policies, the existing ones and the absence of them (Analysis of public policies related to families, social protection, care, life course, well-being from a gender perspective)

The proposals will be evaluated according to their academic quality, the innovation that represents in conceptual-methodological terms and the capacity they have to demonstrate the particular characteristics of the Latin American region at the same time to incorporate its heterogeneities.

Summaries and presentations are expected that clearly establish objectives, methodology, main results of research and reflections or conclusions.