Radical Care

What is Radical Care?

There is a problem with care in capitalist society. On the one hand, there are inequalities in who performs care work, and on the other, there are also inequalities in who receives care. Both are unevenly distributed over certain groups (class background, gender, ethnicity,..) and can’t be separated from structural racism, societal power dynamics, and how capitalism shapes our society. 

Radical Care is the answer to this problem. It’s about changing the system: we oppose how care is distributed in society, and question how we organize care in our own movements. We want to put care in the middle of society and create a caring culture in our communities!

Radical means “grasping things at the roots” (*Angela Davis). Care encompasses all that sustains both individuals, communities and the ecosystem, and caring is inherently an ethical and political practice (Maria Puig de la Bellacasa). Radical Care means seeing the field of care in the perspective from our communities and ecosystem.

When we talk about care, we often think about familiar care practices, such as offering a nurturing environment for those who are sick or in need, support for people who are close to us and for people we don’t know, for kids and elderly. But ‘care’ also means the sharing of power, resources, relationships and inequalities (zhang). 

Caregivers, social workers, and health professionals, or those involved in the “care economy”, are often in precarious working conditions, low wages, lack access to social services and healthcare due to lack of “formalization”, and are subjected and more vulnerable to isolation, health complications, mental issues, etc. But, most importantly, as CARE has been unevenly distributed and can’t be separated from structural racism and inequality, those practitioners of care are left and have had no access to CARE themselves.

The collective

Who are we?

We are a network of people, passionate about the topic of care, who aim to create alternative, power-critical, norm-questioning spaces for healing – for pleasure, mutual-aid and community. The collective started from a wish of longing for community around the topic of Radical Care, and the motivation to transform the culture around it. We believe that by revaluing care, we resist the capitalist society and the systems of oppression around it. By bringing us closer – to ourselves and to each other – and collectively supporting our struggles, we move towards liberatory horizons. 

We aim to create alternatives where everyone is cared for, no matter their gender, class, ethnicity, background, migration status, sexual orientation, productivity score, just to name a few. Our collective currently focuses mostly on psycho-emotional care, as well as capacity building, to both support our emotional wellbeing and to expand and enhance our knowledge and abilities through the sharing of resources, skills and information. 

While we might associate care with the sharing of love, hope, safety and nourishment; radical care also involves the sharing of power, resources, relationships and information. If inequalities are created by hoarding and withholding, then strategic sharing is a way to balance the score (Zhang, 2022).

What are our values?

Sharing  /  Transparency  /  Decentralising institutions  /  Accountability  /  Interdependency  /  Community  /  Non-hierarchical  /  Inclusivity  /  Solidarity

What activities do we organize? How are we structured?

We try to organize ourselves horizontally, and hope to create a collective in which people get the opportunity to grow, learn new skills, try out new roles and develop leadership. The Radical Care Collective is currently organized as follows:

  • The Care Network is a network of people who are interested in the topic of care and want to stay informed of upcoming projects, events and information of the topic of care. 
  • The Orga Team is in charge of the organization, decision-making within the collective and both internal and external communication. This group stays open, so people can come and go depending on how it fits in their life. How active the collective can be, depends on the energy and resources in this group.
  • (Thematic) project Groups:
    • The Weekend group is in charge of organizing the planning, developing and implementation of the therapeutic weekend retreat. It is formed by people interested in supporting those tasks.
    • The Zine group works in the creation of the first zine on the topics of care.

Manifesto

How do we care for each other? Transforming the care culture

Guiding principles

  • We want to build a group where people feel safe and welcome, become friends and know each other. We focus on the social relations in our collective.

    Methods

    • Do a Check-in at the beginning of a meeting and welcome new people + check-out at the end of a meeting
    • Move to smaller groups whenever possible (more creative, more personal)
    • Have a moment before, during or after a meeting dedicated to care practices (food, play, yoga,..)
    • We want to include a diversity of people and needs. We make the effort to acknowledge and recognise our own diversity (there might be a diversity in our group we might not all be aware of) and question the lack of diversity that might be there. (f.e. a care collective that is only white or only physically able-bodied is questionable and a contradiction in itself) (see *diversity)
    • We take breaks
  • We want to be anti-authoritarian and are aware of power dynamics in our collective

    Methods
    • We want to organize ourselves horizontally, to create a collective in which people get the opportunity to grow, learn new skills, try out new roles and develop leadership: People get the chance and support to try out taking responsibility and doing tasks they have no experience in. > buddy / mentorship. . 
    • We exercise sharing facilitation : we change roles of who prepares and facilitates meetings. We aim to share responsibilities and mental charge. Taking initiative is encouraged. While facilitating, we actively interrupt when some people are taking up most of the space, e.g. we move to small groups. 
    • We share resources, knowledge and networks (knowing where to go for help) and do skillsharing moments
    • We aim to create an environment in which people with different knowledge, skills and histories are welcome to share and speak. We acknowledge we need to work to actively create space for those who usually are less heard. 
    • We are transparent about how decisions are made
      • …. 
  • We create space for disagreement. We don’t avoid conflict but create space when there is invisible resentment, power dynamics, cliquish behavior,..

    Methods
    • We share the mental load when conflicts arise. People less present in facilitating can help with the care work of navigating conflict. 
    • We’d like our members to receive training on conflict management
  • We search for a balance between creating together and making connection

    Methods

    • We start a meeting with reading guiding principles, as a transition to arrive
    • We prepare and structure a meeting in advance, and adjust to the needs that are there
    • We keep meetings short (max 2h working time), people can leave when they need to
    • We don’t plan too big projects with many expectations that could cause pressure on people who organize. We plan according to the available energy. 
  • We give recognition to each other for what we do and who we are <3