Keynote speaker: Professor Jo Littler (Goldsmiths University)

This one-day symposium - hosted by the Centre for Research in Communication and Culture - will showcase cutting-edge research on care from scholars at Loughborough University, as well as a number of invited external experts.

In recent years, scholarship across a wide range of disciplines has seen a ‘turn to care’ (Aust 2021), with an increasing recognition of the intrinsic interdependence and shared-yet-unequal vulnerabilities of all human and non-human life. And yet, it is also widely acknowledged that we are living through a ‘crisis in care’, in which the material and affective capacities to reproduce and sustain life are under intensifying pressure (Fraser 2016). Increasingly, our social needs for care are subordinated to the economic imperatives of privatisation and financialisation (Bayliss and Gideon 2020).

As the Care Collective (2020) puts it, we live in a world in which ‘carelessness reigns’. Against this backdrop of ‘an economy of abandonment’ (Dowling 2022), we also see an intensification of ‘self-care’ and ‘wellness’ mantras in media discourse, where hyper-individualist solutions are proffered to tackle endemic structural problems. Consumer brands increasingly coopt the language of care (Sobande 2020), contributing to a broader paradox whereby discourses of care are hyper-visible, while the public infrastructures that enable care become ever-more diminished. Meanwhile, the role of existing and new technologies presents new challenges as well as possibilities for how we value and practice care.

This event seeks to generate new insights into the urgent issue of care, by facilitating dialogue between scholars from a wide range of disciplinary traditions.

Hazlerigg Council Chamber, Loughborough University

10.00: Welcome and introduction

10.15: Opening keynote: Professor Jo Littler (Goldsmiths University)

11.15: Break

11.30: Panel 1: Care and technology

Dr Kristina Saunders (University of Glasgow)

Professor Massimiliano Zecca (Sports Technology Institute, Loughborough University)

Dr Saul Albert (Communication and Media, Loughborough University)

12.45: Lunch

13.30: Panel 2: Care and the media and cultural industries

Dr Hannah Hamad (Cardiff University)

Dr Yuval Katz (Communication and Media, Loughborough University)

Dr Jade French (English, Loughborough University)

2.45: Break

3.00: Panel 3: Health, wellbeing, and social care

Alison Pilnick (Manchester Metropolitan University)

Amy Cortvriend (Criminology, Sociology and Social Policy, Loughborough University)

Catherine Coveny (Criminology, Sociology and Social Policy, Loughborough University)

4.15: Closing remarks

4.30: End

Care: critical dialogues and transdisciplinary approaches