Depletion

Description

When thinking about the work of caring for others we often neglect the human cost born by those performing this care. Feminists have long talked about the ways in which unpaid work, particularly performed in the home, is habitually undervalued by society; but the work of caring for people, both paid and unpaid, can also take a toll on the health of individuals, households, and communities when we give more than we receive. This lopsided gap between outflows and inflows, as this book argues, is depletion.

In Depletion, Shirin M. Rai examines the human costs of care work and how these are reproduced across the boundaries of class, race, gender, and generation. Depletion can be physical, as measured by the body mass index, exhaustion, sleeplessness, and vital health signs. It can also be mental, manifesting as self-doubt, guilt and apprehension, and the failure to take time for oneself, family, friends, and community. Moreover, depletion has effects that extend well beyond the individual, to households and communities.

Including case studies from different parts of the world and building on various methodologies, Rai looks at the costs of care work, or what she calls "social reproduction" in several forms: biological reproduction, unpaid work in the home, and cultural and ideological work necessary to maintain social relations beyond the household. Various chapters examine the costs of commuting to work and for care, the value of unpaid work performed by women of different classes, the costs of household work performed by children, and the costs to communities when local economies are challenged by corporate interests. Lastly, Rai argues that depletion must be recognized in order for it to be reversed—the struggles to reverse depletion are struggles for a good life, generative of new imaginings of how care work, both draining and joyful, can be reorganized for a better future for all.

About the author: Shirin M. Rai is Distinguished Research Professor of Politics and International Relations at SOAS, University of London, and a Fellow of the British Academy. Her research interests are in the fields of political economy of development, gender and political institutions, and performance and politics. She is the author, co-author, or co-editor of several books, including Performing Representation: Women Members in the Indian Parliament and The Oxford Handbook of Politics and Performance.

Reviews

"This is a highly original, important, and engaged conceptual and practical reflection on depletion - a multifaceted concept central to understanding challenges to sustainable and equitable elements of social reproduction and provisioning of livelihoods. Strongly recommended reading for those interested in the dynamics of social reproduction in conditions of global capitalism." - Isabella Bakker, York University

"Depletion is an important, innovative contribution to the political economy of care. It argues that the work of care entails depletion of physical and mental health, which diminishes the wellbeing of carers. Public policy can support replenishment of their capacities, but to prevent depletion requires transformation of social and economic relations to redistribute both care and resources. This book is essential reading for all courses on International Political Economy." - Diane Elson, University of Essex

"This book develops an original discourse on the concept of depletion, which describes the current burden of unpaid and paid women's work, and proposes a formidable journey through the different political economy landscapes. This book is a must for anyone who is interested in understanding the living conditions of women in the world today and possible ways for women to overcome their depletion." - Leopoldina Fortunati, University of Udine

"What an impressive combination of materials and methods, all brought together incisively in a brilliant conceptualization of depletion. A true tour de force!" - Nancy Fraser, New School for Social Research

"This book provides critically important insights into the crisis of care, using the profound yet relatively unrecognized concept of depletion: the multiple and varied human costs of social reproduction. We ignore these costs at our peril; as Rai shows, they affect individual lives and livelihoods, but also society, economy, and even the planet. Anyone who is envisioning a more equitable, just, and viable future for humanity needs to read this book." - Jayati Ghosh, University of Massachusetts Amherst

"A stunningly original, immensely timely, and profoundly important dissection of the human cost of social reproductive labor. Eloquent and at times deeply harrowing, this is an essential reference point for all subsequent debate on this vital topic." - Colin Hay, Sciences Po, Paris

"Shirin Rai's Depletion offers a conceptual breakthrough in feminist political economy. Beautifully written, brilliantly argued, methodologically clear, this is the book with the highest of stakes. It contains a planetary warning, offered from a feminist perspective, and suggests strategies to reverse the current course of human and non-human depletion of resources. It should be read and built upon by activists, scholars, policymakers - by all who wish this world could be otherwise and are willing to work for it." - Aida A. Hozic, University of Florida

"This important book provides innovative tools for theorizing capitalism and for political organizing that puts people's well-being ahead of the drive for private profit. Rai advances the 'depletion' as a complement to feminist political economy's concept of social reproduction. Weaving together time use studies, participant observation, and in-depth interviews, Rai offers superb ethnographies of depletion in the lives of women and children, revealing the ways in which gender, race, class, disability, and age inequalities play out in daily life." - Meg Luxton, York University

"Depletion is a tour de force. In it Shirin Rai brilliantly develops the concept 'depletion through social reproduction' originally co-created with Hoskyns and Thomas. Drawing on diverse methods, the book sharply illuminates gendered, classed, and racialized facets of reproductive labor by women in New Delhi, child carers in Coventry, and the Xolobeni community in Western Cape. While laying clear the resulting harms, the book importantly reflects on ways of challenging and transforming the circuits of power underlying the unequal division of care." - Rianne Mahon, Carleton University

"From individual homes to the global household, everyday lives and structural inequalities are all affected by what 'counts' as work and whose work gets counted. This fundamental insight informs Rai's always ground-breaking critical research and astute analyses. Focusing here on the everyday enables Rai to rearrange and enrich how we understand multi-layered and interactive, visible and invisible, emotional, biophysical, economic, and geo/political harms of depletion, while demonstrating the urgency of reversing depletion and productively exploring strategies for doing so." - V. Spike Peterson, University of Arizona

"Shirin Rai has done it again! Depletion is a highly welcome contribution that pushes us to see beyond settled perspectives. Firmly anchored in the situated lives of carers around the world, the book surfaces the true costs of reproductive labor under capitalism, bringing into focus unusual sites, such as migration, the care labor of children, and environmental activism. Deeply grounded theoretically, full of rich empirics, and with its eyes firmly trained to the future the book is an eye-opener with profound policy implications." - Elisabeth Prügl, Geneva Graduate Institute

Table of contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction: Care, Social Reproduction, and Depletion
Chapter 1. Depletion: The Costs of Social Reproduction and How to Reverse It
Chapter 2. Measuring Depletion in Multiple Registers
Chapter 3. A Day in the Life of . . . : Mapping Individual Depletion Across Class Boundaries
Chapter 4. Depletion on the Move: Commuting and Social Reproduction
Chapter 5. Depleting Futures: Children Who Care
Chapter 6. Postcards to the Future: Anticipatory Harm and Struggles Against Extractivism
Conclusion: Building Solidarities to Reverse Depletion
Notes
References
Index