Pedagogy of Care

What

Pedagogy of Care is an interdisciplinary research project on care economy, collaborative activism and open source democracy funded by Guerrilla Foundation. Its main goal is to map out and give visibility to care practices and affection management by activists or other collective social agents. Pedagogy of Care is a participatory action research project to explore the way activist communities deal with care in their daily relationships. What are the unwritten rules that reproduce patriarchal relationships within activist circles? What kind of available rules could produce an effective redistribution of care among members? How can we expose the way care is being dealt with? And what tools can we develop to successfully put care in the centre of all of our relationships?

How

Pedagogy of Care gives visibility to practices that are less visible but build sustainable communities and participatory processes. It advocates for a culture of work with care at its core and brings together a community of activists and citizens who can work together to move forward with designing concrete policies and common actions. Pedagogy of Care research is based on case studies in different countries and political contexts of Europe. We have interviewed collectives, associations and municipal platforms from Warsaw (Poland), Messina (Italy), Belgrade (Serbia) and Zagreb (Croatia). Once the research has been completed, we will publish a toolkit with a series of methodologies and other devices to test and improve the way care is managed in activist communities.

Why

Pedagogy of care is the continuation of Copylove, which you can read about in this blog post on the P2P Foundation website. The project received a €10K grant from Guerrilla Foundation for travel and production costs, and we are now looking for ways to continue the project in the coming year.

Resources and networks

• Open Paper: Pedagogy of Care (Download)
• Pedagogy of Care: Case studies
• Thinking about care, carefully. Summary of FundAction funded activity: Pedagogy of Care at Culture for Solidarity. Article by Andrea Botero
• A video produced in the context of the European Elections 2019 to advocate for the importance of care in the European political landscape: