Care, Racial Capitalism, and Social Reproduction

Care, Racial Capitalism, and Social Reproduction, led by Premilla Nadasen (BCRW C0-Director and Ann Whitney Olin Professor of History), brings together scholars, organizers, and artists to consider the intersections of social reproduction, racial capitalism, care, the state, and liberatory social change. Social reproduction signifies the labor necessary to maintain and reproduce human life and the labor force. It provides a lens to consider the social relations through which life is made, sustained, and might be transformed. Drawing on the long history of organizing and theorizing forged by feminist activists, low-wage women of color organizers, and scholars who have pushed us to expand our political analysis to include the dimensions of paid and unpaid domestic, emotional, and reproductive labor, this project considers the following questions: What is social reproduction and why does it matter? How does social reproduction broaden the scope of what counts as work and who counts as a worker? How does racial capitalism help us analyze and understand the value of  social reproduction? How is the changing landscape of social reproduction reflective of political and economic shifts? And how is capitalism remaking itself in relation to social reproduction? Building on the work of feminist scholars and activists and the Black Radical Tradition, we also consider how social reproduction can and has been a site of organizing: What are the possibilities and limits of care for labor organizing, disability justice, and abolitionist organizing? How do we understand care in relation to social transformation and the state?

Supported by the Center for Political Economy at Columbia University, the project will produce a series of videos on care, racial capitalism, and social reproduction featuring key organizers and thinkers in the field; a book salon celebrating Premilla Nadasen’s new book, Care: The Highest Stage of Capitalism (Haymarket 2023); and a two-day symposium, Care, Racial Capitalism, and Social Reproduction on April 5-6, co-convened with Ujju Aggarwal (Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Experiential Learning at The New School) and Vayne Ong (Ph.D. Student in History, Columbia University), and co-sponsored by the Center for Political Economy at Columbia University. This project aims to generate materials and space for critical dialogue, inquiry, and collective learning that will inform organizing and scholarship to advance social justice.