Extended deadline for the Call for Abstracts. International Conference CARING FOR ELDERLY AND DEPENDENT PEOPLE: PROMOTING GENDER EQUALITY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE.

8 May, 2019

The organization committee of the International Conference CARING FOR ELDERLY AND DEPENDENT PEOPLE:
PROMOTING GENDER EQUALITY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE has decided to extend the deadline for the call for abstracts to 10th May.

You can read all the information here:

12th and 13th of September, 2019
Universitat Rovira i Virgili

Social care for dependent people and the elderly is one of the major challenges
currently facing our societies. According to demographic estimations, European
countries will experience an increase in their elderly population in the near decades.
On one hand, the increased longevity represents an historical triumph; however, on
the other it brings with it the responsibility to even greater levels of care. Moreover,
chronic diseases and functional diversity will also call for help and social support.

The starting point of the conference is the urgent need to democratize care to enable
societies to take on more and larger responsibilities on a sustainable basis. Care is
still disproportionally provided by the family and women, as the progressive and
increasing role of men in childcare is not matched by a similar level of involvement
in the care of dependent people and the elderly. Ways to enabling men to enter
elderly and dependent care is an urgent yet under studied issue.

The purpose of this conference is to acknowledge the current challenge of
democratising care at many different levels of the care organisation. Participants will
reflect on the current distribution of care work from an intersectional perspective and
in different contexts like families, labour market (private for profit or not for profit,
and public organisations) and in communities; as well as in global care chains.

Democratising care involves socializing care responsibilities, sharing care work
between men and women, recognizing care and its centrality for life sustainability,
dignifying and consolidating its professionalization, and taking into account the rights
and demands of the people who are giving and receiving care. Special emphasis will
be placed on emerging ways of redistributing care among men and women, care
recognition (caring masculinities, public involvement, communitarian initiatives,
labour dignification, among others). The main purpose is to identify key elements for
promoting gender justice and social justice in care.

We invite contributions that reflect on these topics and analyse new data from
different contexts and situations in which dependent people and the elderly are cared
for. The conference values (cross-) regional, national, and transnational perspectives.

Thematic areas
1. Who cares for the elderly and dependent people in families?
– New gender roles, new families, new care needs. Is it possible to care and work at
the same time? Is co-responsibility exercised in care?
– Male experiences in caring
– Aspects that condition care: family and care traditions, couples’ arrangements,
generational arrangements, siblings, family and ‘new families’ arrangements
– Social injustices: difficulties faced by vulnerable families when caring for dependent
and elderly people
– Social and labour resistances to caring masculinities
– The role of the public administration in gender-role transformations
– Care of caring people

2. Care as a labour sector: gender, class and foreign policy
– Care services as precarious and feminized sectors. Domestic work as a care resource
– Claims and demands of domestic and care organized workers
– Rights violations, abuses and justice vulnerability
– Difficulties in the professionalization of care work for dependent and elderly people
– What elements contribute to the involvement of men in care work? (expansion of this
labour area, employment opportunities, human focus of occupation, social utility)
– How do organizational characteristics of care services shape the involvement of men?
– Experiences of men working in paid care work services
– Towards social justice in social care: confluence of interests between families and
workers involved in care
– The role of the public administration in dignifying and democratizing care

3. Communitarian experiences of care: reproduction or
innovation of gender and class roles?
– Is co-responsibility easier in the communitarian context?
– Communitarian care experiences from a gender and class perspective
– Communitarian care in the social and solidarity economy
– Tensions between the public and communitarian contexts
– Communitarian experiences where men are involved in care
– Cohousing experiences in the care of elderly and dependent people: is there
innovation in terms of gender and social justice?
– Promotion of intergenerational relations with a gender and class perspective
– Voluntary and activist community activities
– The role of the public administration in the communitarian context

4. Desires and agency of care-receivers
– What do the elderly desire? Preferences, stereotypes, resistances
– What do the people with functional diversity desire? Preferences, stereotypes and
resistances
– How do these desires interact with the different spaces and contexts in which care is
given?
– How are these desires expressed in terms of deserving/undeserving?
– Facing the end of life
– Negotiations, conflicts and tensions in decision-making processes
– The emotional dimension of care
– Access to care

INVITED SPEAKERS:

Elli Scambor (Institute Men and Gender Issues, Graz, Austria)
Heike Drotbohm (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz)
Raquel Martínez Buján (Universidade da Coruña)

NEW DEADLINE FOR SENDING ABSTRACTS: MAY 10th, 2019
Abstracts, in English or Spanish, of a maximum of 500 words should include: title,
name and affiliation of author/s, academic position and e-mail. They should also
contain: selected thematic area, objectives, methodology, main lines of analysis
and main sources, as well as 5 keywords.

Abstracts should be sent up t0 10th of May to: gendercare@urv.cat

The list of accepted proposals will be published on 5th of June 2019.
The registration period (40€) will open on 6th of June 2019.
The conference will be held in September 12th and 13th at Rovira i Virgili University
(Tarragona, Spain). The official languages of the conference are Spanish and
English. Further information on symposia and conferences will be updated in the
following weeks. The organization of the conference does not cover travel and
accommodation expenses.

For any additional information, please contact with the conference administrator:
gendercare@urv.cat

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