Abstract
Human geography has experienced a burgeoning interest in care. Despite this, the
more radical potentials of thinking with, and through, care remain largely unex-
plored. In this paper, we critically examine one such potential, asking how care
might facilitate a substantial rethinking of practices of research and analysis
within human geography. We argue that care does not simply name practices of
social reproduction or emotional attachment, but is a distinct mode of ethics, both
visible in the social world and capable of infor ming academic practice. We ask
what it means to recognise everyday accounts as acts of care, and to analyse these
same accounts through an ethic of care where knowledge, action, relating to
others, and the shaping of ethical commitment are inextricably intertwined. While,
typically, everyday accounts are seen as about some sort of underlying meaning
or dynamic, we suggest that such accounts need to be understood as parts of
efforts to navigate and remake social worlds. We unfold our argument by first
tracing how care has been understood and analysed within human geography as a
shifting and situated social practice. Building on, but moving beyond, such
approaches, we examine social worlds as “matters of care,” where everyday
understandings and the potential for action and ethical commitment are not only
continually negotiated but are also staunchly kept open to new possibilities.
Through the close reading of extracts from indepth interviews with firsttime par-
ents in the city of Oxford, UK, we illustrate how care offers a committed practice
of knowing and relating within research. We argue this approach provides new
ways of thinking about geographical research, where primary research, analysis,
and scholarly narratives are all implicated in the remaking of everyday worlds
that, in turn, reveal a new terrain of political potentiality.
Drawing on in-depth interviews with first-time parents in the city of Oxford, we offer a critical examination of how notions of care can transform practices of research and analysis within human geography. We argue care offers a committed practice of knowing and relating within research where data collection, analysis, and scholarly narratives are all implicated in the remaking of everyday worlds that, in turn, reveal a new terrain of political potentiality.
