Who knows what and how? Care ethics and academic knowledge

Abstract

In France, the notion of care was systematically disqualified by the social sciences, sociology in particular, when it first appeared in academic publications. A few years later, the landscape has changed. The notion of care is used to renew studies in various fields. Putting the word care in the title of an article, conference or seminar no longer elicits any particular reaction. If the word care, and with it something of the feminist perspective, has been absorbed into the everyday vocabulary of the social sciences, this phenomenon is, in my opinion, accompanied by a weakening of its critical edge, in sociology at any rate. I argue that this is because how knowledge is produced have remained unchanged. This article outlines some of the implications of care ethics for how we produce knowledge and make sense in common.

Keywords: care, ethics, experience, knowledge, sociology.