Symposium on Carelessness

Care is part of everyday life. It takes place in informal settings (such as checking on a neighbour, supporting a family member, sharing knowledge, or taking responsibility within a community), as well as in institutionalised settings of health, social care, welfare, policy, and research. This symposium starts from care as something people do, and asks what becomes visible when care is uneven, neglected, or actively withheld across a range of different contexts. 

Feminist, postcolonial, and comparative philosophy scholars have long framed care as a relational process - neither singular nor linear, but shaping, and shaped by, a myriad of other relations. Against the backdrop of intensifying discursive and material structures of inequality – reflected in populist polemics, neoconservative resurgences and necropolitical practices, it is relations of carelessness that demand, now more than ever, attention. A focus on carelessness engenders crucial questions: What does it mean to care about people– especially the most precarious ones? Which people become the casualties of care or carelessness? Who has the right to tell such stories, and on whose behalf? How do care and carelessness intersect with violence, harm, (in)visibility or (in)equality?

This symposium based at Utrecht University, will bring together academics, stakeholders, and practitioners, fostering dialogue across disciplines, epistemologies, and perspectives, exploring the notion of carelessness. We aim to create a constructive dialogue between academics, stakeholders, and practitioners to enable longstanding connections and collaborations for future research and (policy) impact. We are interested in care/carelessness in the broadest sense – from helping and supporting the community, friends, and family to institutional, formal, health and social forms of care. 

Program

9:45 
Opening 
10:00-11:00 
Session 1: Spaces of Carelessness
The Unwanted Gift: Troubling Care and Kindness in Everyday Community Sharing Spaces - dr. Eleanor Jupp (University of Kent)
Crafting with Debris: Welfare Ruination and Rotterdammer’s Make-shift Practices - Gresa Gashi (Law, UU)
Caring for What is Being Forgotten: Documentary Film and the Politics of Memory - Sofía Alvarez Salas (filmmaker)
11:00-11:15
Coffee break
11:15-12:00  
Panel 1: Giving and receiving informal care in the context of limited resources: a transdisciplinary panel discussion on lived experiences in vulnerable circumstances 
Panelists: dr. Jantien van Berkel (ISS, UU), dr Carlijn Kamphuis (ISS, UU), Margret Franssen (ISS, UU), Adesa Schevers and Maaike Oosterbaan (MantelzorgNL) .
12:00-12:45 
Lunch 
12:45-13:45  
Session 2: Crime and/as Carelessness
Disposed, Unidentified, A Spectacle: How Carelessness Affects Sex Workers After Death – dr. Brenda Oude Breuil (Law, UU)
Unmaleable: Carelessness and the Institutional Invisbility of Sexually Exploited Young Men - Dennis Dul (Law, UU)
Crime and Care: Sustaining Life, Reproducing Violence - Raquel Rojas  (Sociology, University of Cambridge)
13 :45-14 :00  
Coffee break 
14:00-15:00 
Session 3: Citizen participation and Carelessness as Methodology
Diamonds on the Soles of our Feet: in the minor key – dr. Jacqueline Goldin (University of the Western Cape)
Care/lessness from a Straathoekwerker Perspective - Neal Cooleman (social worker)
Caring Through Virtual Reality: Engaging with Different Practices of Care(Lessness) - Lisa Burghardt (Humanities, UU) 
15:00-15:15 
Coffee Break 
15:15-16:00  
Panel 2: Women’s reproductive experiences along the care/lessness continuum: An intergenerational perspective 
Panelists: Renee Out (physician), Rodante van der Waal (philosopher and midwife), Suzanne Roes (philosopher, activist, author), and Lisette ten Haaf (researcher). Moderated by Elisa Fiore (GEO, UU) & Francesca Ranalli (ISS, UU).
16:00-16:30  
Drinks in the Museum Garden (Oude Hortus)